Canoeing: Fouhy makes dream start

6.00pm

ATHENS - New Zealand's Ben Fouhy made a dream start to his Olympic canoeing campaign by winning his K1 1000m heat with ease at the Schinias course today.

Victory in the opening race of the Games' flatwater regatta saw Fouhy advance directly to Friday's final while most of the other paddlers will have to race in Wednesday's semifinals.

World champion Fouhy said before the race that advancing directly to the gold medal race was very important and he never looked like coming up short today.

A renowned finisher, he took the lead from the outset and gradually pulled away to win by 1-1/2 lengths from Hungarian Roland Kokeny.

His time was a quick three minutes 26.064 seconds, boosted by a healthy tailwind of 6m per second which is at the limit allowable for competition.

Fouhy had just over an hour to recuperate before teaming with Steven Ferguson to contest the K2 1000m heats.

Fouhy only clocked the fourth fastest time of the day.

The quickest was Great Britain's Tim Brabants, who was timed at 3min 24.412sec when upsetting the more highly-rated Canadian Adam van Koeverden.

The third heat was won comfortably by Fouhy's main threat for gold, Norway's Eirik Veraas Larsen, in a time just under 1sec quicker than the New Zealander.

Fouhy and Steven Ferguson also qualified in their K2 1000m heat, finishing second.

Because the K2 fields are smaller than the K1, the leading three crews from both heats advance.

That was not an easy task in a heat featuring several of the world's best combinations, including Swedish world champions Markus Oscarsson and Henrik Nilsson who won in impressive style.

- NZPA