Men's C2: German duo have big lead, Olympic Champions miss final

Australian Canoeing Media Services, Sunday, 2 October 2005

SYDNEY - German pair of Christian Bahmann and Michal Senft will take confidence into Sunday afternoon's Men's C2 Final after their flawless run of 111.32 seconds in the morning's semi-final, which had them qualifying fastest by 3.87 seconds.

Slovakian brothers Peter and Ladislav Skantar qualified second in 115. 19 seconds while defending world champions, Jaroslav Volf and Ondrej Stepanak (CZE), are in third position for the final after their time of 115.66 seconds, even with a two second penalty at gate 20.

Bahmann has Olympic pedigree in this sport with his mother, Angelika Bahmann, winning gold for East Germany in the Women's K1at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

However, for 2004 Athens Olympic champions, Pavol and Peter Hochschorner, penalties at gates 8 and 13 resulted in their time of 121.44 not being enough to qualify them, and the 2002 World Champions will be watching the final on the banks.

Australia's only canoe of Mark Bellofiore and Lachlan Milne finished 12th after their run of 126.90 and will also miss the final.

By Ed logue
Infostrada Sports