15th Asian Games Canoe/kayak finals

[Nautilus]

The 1000m men's finals will begin on today 11 Dec 2006 at 1900 hrs GMT+8.

As expected the usual power houses are in the finals.

K1
Lane 1: South Korea
Lane 2: Kazakhstan
Lane 3: Iran
Lane 4: India
Lane 5: China
Lane 6: Uzbekistan

C1
Lane 1: South Korea
Lane 2: Kazakhstan
Lane 3: China
Lane 4: Uzbekistan
Lane 5: Iran
Lane 6: Japan

K2
Lane 1: Korea
Lane 2: Kazakhstan
Lane 3: China
Lane 4: Kyrgyzstan
Lane 5: Uzbekistan
Lane 6: Iran

C2
Lane 1: China
Lane 2: Kazahkstan
Lane 3: Uzbekistan
Lane 4: Japan
Lane 5: Vietnam
Lane 6: Indonesia

C2 has 1 surprising finalists, Vietnam. Alas Philippines did not make it into the men's 1000m finals, but they are sure to shine in next years 24th SEA Games, which will be held in Thailand.

Be sure to catch the races on your cable, or if you are not as fortunate like yours-truly, then download TVU Player and watch it live online! Alternatively, you can stream it directly at WWITV. Just browse through the sports channels and choose your favourite one.

[Vault Boy]

best channel is CCTV channel 5, because China in the finals. The other sports channel do not concentrate on asian games.

[Nautilus]

The event is held on a structured water course that is open to choppy wave, currents,  tide and high wind. The disadvantage of race course prevented best showings.

China Liu Hai Tao clinched the Gold medal for k1-1000m with a timing of 4.25.136. The Korean paddler Moon Chul Wook was leading for the 1st  metres by 1 boat length to Liu Hai Tao. Subsequently he fell back to 2nd placing and at 500m mark sped up again. However, China is consistent, overtook quickly and eventually ended the race 1st, with the runner up, Uzbekistan, coming in about 2 seconds later. Korea eventually finished 3rd.

China C1-1000m paddler did not achieve an as good performance compared to his Heat timing by a full 34 sec. He has maintained 3rd position and quickly fell back about 300m to 5th place. He was mainly affected by the start off mistake. The Iranian paddler even capsized before the race when getting into his canoe. Kazakhstan's Menkov Vadim won the gold for C1 -1000m with a time of 4.57.815.

China again clinched the K2-1000m men gold with timing of 3.56.423. (They even capsize at the end of the race.) Silver goes to Iran and Bronze goes to Kazakhstan.

China again strike gold for C2-1000m 4.22.003. Indian duo actually sped up at 400 m mark to lead other boats by one and a half boat length. This mistake of speeding up quickly led to faitgue and caused them to fall back after the crossing the 500m buoy. Indonesia was quite strong and the let slip the bronze to Japan by 0.012 sec. Kazakhstan surprising fell in last even losing to Vietnam. Silver goes to Uzbekistan.

China will be aiming to have a good showing at Beijing 2008 Olympics.

[Nautilus]

The men and women 500m heat races and semi-finals will be held on 13th Dec 2006. The race schedules can be found here.

The finals for the 500m races in K1, K2, C1, C2, will be held on the 14th Dec 2006. The races will begin at 1900hrs GMT+8.

Do stay tuned for the after race report.

[Nautilus]

The Canoe-Kayak 500m Finals for K1-men, C1-men, K2-men, C2-men, K1-women, K2-women will begin at 1900hrs GMT+8. There should be telecast at CCTV5, but probably not live. The finalist are the usual suspects, China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia.

Liu Haitao is the expected champion in the K1-men category. In the C1 however, Yang Wenjun on the other hand seems to be having a poor show in this game, namely in the heats and the C1-1000m men finals. Favourite in this category will be Uzbek, Menkov Vadim. The K2-men and K1-women Golds will probably go to China. For the rest of the category, the Uzbeks and Kazakhs will probably stand a better chance at Gold.

[Nautilus]

As expected Liu Haitao swept the Gold for men k1-500m, but it was pretty dramatic...he was maintaining 2nd-3rd position throughout the first 350m. Then as the camera kept focus on the Uzbek athlete, then at the last 50m, suddely the view angle widen and we see China surging pass to claim Gold by less than a second difference from Sergey, the Uzbek paddler.

The greatest upset to my prediction is Yang Wenjun in his powerful show in men's C1-500m. He simply led all the way, beating the Korean paddler by 2.5 seconds. The Korean Lee claimed the Silver medal. Yang commented that he would be better off concentrating and improving on the 500m segment.

In women's K1-500m Uzbekistan's Borzova came in 1st and China's Zhong Hongyan came in 2nd, contrary to my prediction.

The China women k2-500m duo also strike gold and in the men's C2-500m, with Yang as one of the pair, China came in silver. They probably would have gotten gold if Yang had not just finished his C1-500m race. Kazkhstan came in 1st for this event.