TOKYO (AP) — Ronald Rauhe of Germany set an Olympic canoe sprint milestone Saturday, and Lisa Carrington of New Zealand just missed another in her otherwise…
TOKYO (AP) — Ronald Rauhe of Germany set an Olympic canoe sprint milestone Saturday, and Lisa Carrington of New Zealand just missed another in her otherwise splendid Tokyo Games. And Serghei Tarnovschi of Moldova, who was stripped of his bronze medal in 2016 because of a positive doping test, benefitted from the yearlong delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic to return to the Olympics and win another medal. His four-year suspension ended in time for him to qualify in May. Rauhe became the first man to win a medal in the sport in five Olympics when Germany won the men’s kayak 500 meters, the final sprint race at the Sea Forest Waterway. Germany edged Spain by 0.226 seconds. The gold medal was the second of his long career to go with two bronze and a silver. And at age 39, Rauhe is the second-oldest man to win a canoe sprint gold medal. Only Gert Fredriksson of Sweden was older at 40 in 1960. Rauhe had originally planned to retire in 2017 but returned when the Olympics dropped the men’s four 1,000 and replaced it with the 500.
