Australian paddlers Tom Green and Jean van der Westhuyzen have shocked their Tokyo K2 1000-metre rivals, posting an Olympic record in their first international race as a duo.
The 22-year-old Queenslanders led home world champion Germans Max Hoff and Jacob Schopf to win Wednesday’s heat by 1.057 seconds – smashing the previous Olympic best time set by Italy way back in 1996 in Atlanta.
Their time of 3:08.773 was the fastest of the three heats, with the pair looking to surpass Australia’s bronze medal in the event in Rio 2016, won by Ken Wallace and Lachlan Tame.
Only recently emerged from junior ranks and with international racing curtailed for the past two years by COVID-19, van der Westhuyzen said they weren’t sure how they would stack up.
“It’s our first international race as a K2 so we didn’t really know what to expect or what to feel when we crossed the line to win the race,” the South Africa-born kayaker said.
“We just had fun out there and did what we knew we could do in training, so we just had a good time and it was pretty cool to come away with an Olympic best.”
Mentored by the now-retired Wallace, Green had opened his first Olympics on Tuesday by reaching the final of the K1 1000m.
Australia’s other K2 crew Jordan Wood and Riley Fitzsimmons finished third in their heat but won their repechage race, with both the semi-finals and medal race set for Thursday.
In the women’s K1 500m Alyce Wood and Alyssa Bull moved directly through to the semi-finals but four-time Olympic gold medallist Lisa Carrington of New Zealand is again the kayaker to beat.
The two Australians combined in the K2 500m on Tuesday to finish fifth behind Carrington and her partner Caitlin Regal, while the Kiwi great also won the K1 200m, her third successive gold in the event.
Wood finished second in her K1 500 heat and Bull third in hers, with Carrington comfortably clear in the sixth heat at Sea Forest Waterway.
Earlier, Bernadette Wallace and Josie Bulmer made history as Australia’s first-ever female canoe entries, with women’s events added to the Olympic program in Tokyo.
Wallace, the younger sister of Ken, and Bulmer didn’t get out of the repechage round of the C1 200m but expect to do better competing together in their preferred C2 500m later in the week.
AAP
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