South African canoeist Alan van Coller booked his place at the Athens Olympic Games with a stunning performance in the 500m K1 final at the Olympic qualifying event at Lake Malta in Poland.
Van Coller finished sixth in a very competitive final after being poised in the top three with 120m to go in the race. Van Coller needed to finish at least in eighth place to secure one of the last five Olympic berths up for grabs.
The final was won by multiple world champion Akos Vereicki, with Van Coller less than a second-and-a-half behind him, and less than a second off the last medal-winner’s pace.
Van Coller beat the legendary Michael Kolganov in the final — the first time that Van Coller has managed to get the better of Kolganov, who also needed to qualify a berth for Israel in the final.
”I had a good race,” said a delighted Van Coller afterwards.
”I was feeling very good for the first 250m, and I was lying third or fourth at that stage. I tightened up a bit in the last 50m and finished sixth, but I can tell you that it was very, very close up front there,” he added.
The 36-year-old Johannesburg Olympian, who made the 500m K1 final at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, said that he was excited by his current form and conditioning.
”I feel it is really coming together nicely, and I am very pleased with the result,” said Van Coller.
Shaun Rubenstein also enjoyed a brilliant weekend on the water. He won the 200m K1 final for the non-European nations at the event, beating paddlers from Australia and New Zealand.
Earlier, he stunned the competition by racing to a third place in the 1 000m K1 B final against a very strong field. For the 20-year-old, who has been a part of the Operation Excellence squad for just more than two years, the result is a major milestone in his short career. — Sapa