RIO DE JANEIRO: Hungarian kayaker Danuta Kozak fought off a fearsome pack of competitors to defend her Olympic title in the women’s K-1 500 metres final on Thursday.

Kozak, 29, claimed the fifth Olympic medal of her career and her second gold of the Rio Games in one minute 52.49 seconds, 1.82 seconds faster than silver medallist Emma Jorgensen of Denmark.

New Zealand’s Lisa Carrington, who won gold in the women’s kayak single 200 metres on Tuesday, uncharacteristically struggled throughout the race.

Carrington, who languished behind much of the pack at halfway, battled back to claim bronze in the final stretch. Thursday’s field featured five different Olympic medal holders.

Maryna Litvinchuk, a member of Belarus’ 2012 bronze medal-winning K-4 team, took fourth place and Germany’s triple medalist Franziska Weber was fifth, while five-time Olympic medalist Inna Osipenko-Rodomska of Azerbaijan finished last.

Kozak, who also took gold in Tuesday’s women’s K-2 500 metres, will seek a rare triple gold in the sport, returning on Friday for the K-4 500 metres heat.

In other finals at the Lagoa Stadium, London 2012 gold medallist Iurii Cheban of Ukraine retained his single canoe 200m title, jumping to the lead off the start line and holding on to win in 39.279sec.

Azerbaijan’s Valentin Demyanko claimed silver and bronze went to Brazil’s Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos.

Spain’s Saul Craviotto and Cristian Toro won the men’s double kayak 200m, the two crossing the line ahead of silver medallists Liam Heath and Jon Schofield of Great Britain with Lithuania’s Aurimas Lankas and Edvinas Ramanauskas capturing bronze.

The men’s double kayak 1,000m gold went to Max Rendschmidt and Marcus Gross.

Rendschmidt and Gross powered across the line in 3min 10.781sec with Serbia’s Marko Tomicevic and Milenko Zoric taking silver and Australians Ken Wallace and Lachlane Tame earning bronze.

Medals table

As at 10:00pm (PST) on Thursday

(Tabulated under gold, silver, bronze, total):

United States 31 32 31 94

Britain 21 21 13 55

China 19 15 20 54

Germany 13 8 9 30

Russia 12 14 15 41

Japan 10 5 18 33

France 8 11 13 32

Italy 8 9 6 23

Netherlands 8 4 3 15

Australia 7 8 10 25

South Korea 7 3 7 17

Hungary 7 3 4 14

Spain 5 1 2 8

Kenya 4 4 0 8

Jamaica 4 0 2 6

New Zealand 3 7 2 12

Brazil 3 5 5 13

Kazakhstan 3 3 6 12

Canada 3 2 9 14

Croatia 3 2 0 5

Ukraine 2 4 2 8

North Korea 2 3 2 7

Cuba 2 2 4 8

Poland 2 2 3 7

Thailand 2 2 2 6

Colombia 2 2 0 4

Uzbekistan 2 1 4 7

Belgium 2 1 2 5

Switzerland 2 1 2 5

Greece 2 1 1 4

Argentina 2 1 0 3

Iran 2 0 2 4

South Africa 1 5 2 8

Denmark 1 4 5 10

Sweden 1 4 2 7

Armenia 1 3 0 4

Belarus 1 2 2 5

Serbia 1 2 1 4

Slovenia 1 2 1 4

Indonesia 1 2 0 3

Czech Republic 1 1 5 7

Ethiopia 1 1 3 5

Georgia 1 1 3 5

Romania 1 1 2 4

Bahrain 1 1 0 2

Slovakia 1 1 0 2

Vietnam 1 1 0 2

Taiwan 1 0 2 3

Independent 1 0 1 2

Bahamas 1 0 0 1

Fiji 1 0 0 1

Kosovo 1 0 0 1

Puerto Rico 1 0 0 1

Singapore 1 0 0 1

Azerbaijan 0 4 4 8

Turkey 0 2 2 4

Malaysia 0 2 1 3

Ireland 0 2 0 2

Lithuania 0 1 3 4

Mongolia 0 1 1 2

Algeria 0 1 0 1

Grenada 0 1 0 1

Philippines 0 1 0 1

Qatar 0 1 0 1

Venezuela 0 1 0 1

Norway 0 0 3 3

Egypt 0 0 2 2

Israel 0 0 2 2

Tunisia 0 0 2 2

Austria 0 0 1 1

Bulgaria 0 0 1 1

Dominican Rep 0 0 1 1

Estonia 0 0 1 1

Finland 0 0 1 1

India 0 0 1 1

Kyrgyzstan 0 0 1 1

Moldova 0 0 1 1

Morocco 0 0 1 1

Portugal 0 0 1 1

UAE 0 0 1 1

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2016