Canadian duo advance to medal round in men's 200m kayak
Mark Oldershaw fails to move on to A final in men's C-1 200-metre sprint
By Pete Evans, CBC Sports
The duo of Ryan Cochrane and Hugues Fournel are through the semifinals and will paddle for a medal on Thursday in the A final of the K-2, 200-metre kayak race.
After finishing fourth in their opening race, the Canadian pair finished a strong third in their semifinal race and will race in the A final tomorrow where the medals are handed out.
- SCHEDULE & RESULTS: Compete coverage of canoe/kayak events
- WATCH: Cochrane and Fournel's semifinal race here
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CAN?src=hash">#CAN</a> Cochrane & Fournel only got the call to go to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rio2016?src=hash">#Rio2016</a> 3 weeks ago. Now they are in the final in the K2 200m. <a href="https://t.co/D0OqmqzgSX">https://t.co/D0OqmqzgSX</a>
—@CBCOlympics"I'm pretty sure we can go faster tomorrow," Fournel said, "we're hoping to go quick."
Cochrane and Fournel are writing quite an Olympic story for themselves, as they were late additions to the Rio Games. They were only admitted three weeks before the games began when a spot opened up because a Russian team was disqualified for doping violations.
"When you received something like that late, it makes you appreciate it even more," Cochrane said.
Fournel's father Jean competed at the 1976 Games in Montreal, and his sister Emilie is competing on the women's side in Rio.
Other results
Elsewhere on the water on Wednesday, former Olympic medallist Mark Oldershaw failed to qualify for the medal race in his event, the men's C-1 200-metre canoe sprint.
Oldershaw was looking for redemption in the race after having also failed to make the A final in another canoe distance earlier this week.
On the women's side, Fournel's sister, Emilie, raced a strong first half of her semifinal race before fading late and as a result failing to move on to the medal round.