A brilliant paddle from New Zealand kayaker Mike Dawson has put him in pole position at the canoe slalom world championships in London overnight.
The Tauranga 28-year-old clocked the fastest time of the day on the tough Lee Valley course, with his 81.28sec effort heading an illustrious lineup of the best slalom exponents on the planet. It put him straight into Sunday's semifinal, in a great position to qualify a boat for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
"That was one of the best runs I've had in a long time and the cool thing was that I just tried to have fun," Dawson said. "Everything went just as planned and it just felt great - even if I was slower, I would've still been happy with how it felt."
Left in his wake were previous world champions Vavrinec Hradilek (16th qualifier), Peter Kauzer (14th) and reigning Olympic champion Daniele Molmenti (19th). Defending champion champion Boris Neveu (France) missed the top-30 cut after the first round and had to qualify through the repecharge round, while others like top Australian Lucien Delfour missed the semifinals completely.
Alexandra's Finn Butcher nearly made it an even sweeter day for the New Zealand team, picking up a 2sec penalty for touching a gate and finishing an agonising 12th in the second run, just 0.47secs off the top-10 finish he needed to progress.