Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Slalom Medal for Africa



Benjamin Boukpeti from Togo won gold in the mens K1 slalom final. Absolutely stunning. And he was only 0.15 seconds away from Silver.

He won his semi by 1 hundredth of a second.


I hope this sparks the rest of our paddling squad to show what Africans and particularly SAFFAs can do.

Cameron McIntosh describes the race ...

Benjamin Boukpeti, who paddles for TOGO, and is an AmaDonsaDonsa Team member had the race of his life this afternoon and won the Bronze Medal. We are SO proud of Ben and the super amazing result! It is a HUGE boost for slalom in Africa!!!! WELL DONE BEN!!!!!!

We have just got back from the slalom. It is absolutely incredible that Benjamin won. He was a BEAST on the course and ripped it to shreds. I must say having lost to him at the Africa Champs I actually feel pretty cool about losing to an Olympic Medallist!!!

He was leading the 1st run and in the 2nd run had a stormer but it was just not good enough to beat the German, Alex Grim. Alex has a head of titanium when it comes to the big events and his second run was awesome. He is probably physically the biggest paddler and just blew everyone away including Ben who has no problem to do reps with 130kgs on the Bench!

The atmosphere was superb. Martikan in the C1 won the Gold again after having taken it in Atlanta when he was 17 and then getting silver twice in Sydney and Athens. This time he touched in BOTH his runs but still won by 2 seconds!!!






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