Olympics: Germany's Brendel paddles to canoe gold

London, Aug 8 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Canoeist Sebastian Brendel paddled to gold for Germany in the Olympic men's C1 1,000-metre sprint Wednesday, forcing Spain's David Figueroa Cal to settle for a second silver medal in succession.

Brendel made a slow start but took control of the race just after the halfway point and eventually won in a time of 3 minutes 47.176 seconds, 0.877 seconds ahead of Cal, who won silver in the same event in Beijing four years ago.

Uzbekistan's Vadim Menkov had led for much of the race and looked likely to take at least bronze, but he faded at the finish and was beaten into fourth place by Canada's Mark Oldershaw, who took bronze.

Defending champion Attila Vajda of Hungary failed to trouble the leaders at any stage of the race and came in sixth, almost four seconds behind Brendel.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

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