Olympic farce from Down Under as sports bosses are blasted after stars came last by almost a MINUTE after only learning the event three months before the Paris Games
- Drama during the C2 500 meter canoe race
- Scenes compared to ‘Eric the Eel’ at the Sydney Games
New Zealand’s premier canoe racing organisation is under fire after the national men’s sprint team finished almost a minute behind the winners in embarrassing scenes at the Paris Olympics.
Max Brown and Grant Clancy were more than 50 metres behind the rest of the field on Tuesday, crossing the finish line about 50 seconds behind their rivals, who were returning to the pier as the Kiwis finished.
For comparison, the boat that won the C2 500m sprint heat finished in a time of 1 minute and 38 seconds.
Brown and Clancy represented their country, even though they had only learned the discipline three months earlier.
The shocking scenes have been compared to the exploits of swimmer Eric ‘The Eel’ Moussambani, who became a cult hero after finishing far behind the rest in the 100m freestyle at the Sydney Olympics, despite having only learned to swim eight months before the event.
Canoe Racing New Zealand (CRNZ) is now facing heavy criticism for selecting the pair, as the organisation took advantage of a strange aspect of the rules surrounding qualification for the Olympic Games.
New Zealand duo James Munro and Kacey Ngataki secured their country a place in the C2 500m when they won a race at the Oceania Championships in Sydney in February.
At that event they defeated an Australian team aged between 60 and 70, according to the New Zealand Herald.
Grant Clancy (left) and Max Brown finished almost a minute behind the winners of their canoe sprint race on Tuesday in scenes described as “embarrassing” by legendary New Zealand kayaker Ian Ferguson
The Kiwis were nowhere to be seen at the finish of their 500m race as they trailed their rivals by a staggering margin
Clancy and Brown’s performance led to comparisons with Olympic cult hero Eric ‘The Eel’ Moussambani, who was a long way behind in the 100m freestyle field at the 2000 Sydney Games
CRNZ subsequently decided not to send Munro and Ngataki to the Games, instead sending Brown, Clancy, Hamish Legarth and Kurtis Imrie. The latter two athletes would then be able to compete in the K4 kayak event, in addition to the K2 races for which they had qualified.
The shameful outcome of Brown and Clancy left New Zealand kayaking great Ian Ferguson horrified.
βIt puts a little dent in our silver fern,β said Ferguson, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, Stuff.
‘It was very sad to see. It was embarrassing.
‘Sneaking in through the back door… that’s not exactly the sporting way to do it… We’ve kind of skirted the rules.
“It will be a very embarrassing day for their reputation.”
The pair’s time would have put them last in the women’s heats, by a margin of 12 seconds.
However, there is speculation that the two wanted to save their energy as they also had to participate in the K4 event twice on Tuesday.