For his first run, he arrived at the start just a few seconds before he was scheduled to start, coming off the conveyor and directly onto the course. He made a small mistake right away, in the first offset, then settled in, and was very solid all the way down on a run where everyone looked a little bit lame. It was good enough for second. He gave the brown claw at the finish.
So brown.
What the hell does that mean? Here's some required reading.Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Brown
The story of the brown claw
On his second run, he arrived at the start pool early and looked bored as he bided his time. Then he absolutely smashed the course - he did a crossbow in a move that caused most of the women to spin yesterday - beating all of the first run times even after floating for ~5 seconds to the finish. Hannes Aigner was more serious, went similarly well, and won the day.
Bold.
Watch the runs here:http://www.ctvolympics.ca/videos/channel/obs1/watch/slalom-heats.html
The kayaks have stepped up their game this year, in particular the young Germans, French, and Czechs. Kauzer and Molmenti look flat by comparison and could easily end up outside the medals, despite having dominated in the last quad.
In other Olympic news, an expected showdown between Martikan and Estanguet lived up to its promise this morning. Martikan went gold, silver, silver, gold at the last four; Estanguet won the other two. No one makes it look better. They are the best of a generation, if not all time, at any discipline.
Estanguet took it. Here's his last run (probably his last ever):
Estanguet in the final, en francais.
The kayaks are only going to find 2-3 seconds on that tomorrow.
The German, Sideris, was just as good and was second, in maybe one of the best races of all time.
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