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29 March 2024

‘Usain Bolt on Water’ kicks off Olympics Super Saturday with gold

Competitors paddle the men's canoe single 200m final in Eton Dorney, near Windsor, England, at the 2012 Summer Olympics. (AP)

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By Agencies

Super Saturday at the London Games began, appropriately enough, with another Olympic gold medal for the home team.

Ed McKeever, nicknamed the "Usain Bolt on Water," won the inaugural 200-meter K-1 sprint event at Dorney Lake west of London, the 26th gold medal for Britain and the first of 32 golds to be presented on the penultimate day of Games of the 30th Olympiad.

McKeever said the anticipation of competing in front of his home crowd caused a sleepless night.

"This morning I woke up at five o'clock and I was like a kid at Christmas, just waiting to open his presents," McKeever said before the medal presentations. "And I'm going to go and get my present in a minute."

In other 200-meter canoe and kayak sprint finals on Saturday, Yuri Cheban of Ukraine won gold in the inaugural men's C-1,

Lisa Carrington of New Zealand took the women's singles kayak and Yury Postrigay and Alexander Dyachenko of Russia won gold in the men's kayak.

It was another gorgeous day in England — sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-20s Celsius (about 75 Fahrenheit), making the country and its resilient citizens forget about the near-continuous rain that plagued the leadup to the games.

And with no major security issues, a transportation system that worked well most of the time and thousands of friendly, chatty volunteers, the country and the games were in a good place.

The gold medal count gave them another reason to smile — Britain is in third place in the gold medal race behind the United States (41) and China (37) with the Americans looking favorably placed to win the overall race after the completion of all 302 events on Sunday.

The Americans were likely to pick up more gold in the women's basketball final later Saturday and several more in athletics, while China was all but assured of taking its seventh of eight golds in the dive pool, the men's 10-meter platform.

At the Olympic Stadium on Saturday evening, the real Usain Bolt hopes to complete his second straight sprint triple crown on the hectic last night of athletics. Bolt has already defended the 100 and 200 sprint titles he won in Beijing and now needs the help of his relay teammates to repeat in the 4x100, where Jamaica will be big favorites.

The hopes of the host nation will again be pinned on long-distance dynamo Mo Farah, who hopes to add the 5,000 to the 10,000 title he won last Saturday.

In the women's 800, defending champion Pamela Jelimo of Kenya is favorite with world champion Mariya Savinova of Russia and 2009 champion Caster Semenya of South Africa also likely to be among the podium threats.

Also Saturday, Brazil aims to add an Olympic title to the country's five World Cup titles in the football final against Mexico at Wembley.

"We all know that we need to win the gold," coach Mano Menezes said. "Brazil has to win every tournament it plays, it needs to win every match it plays, even if it's a friendly. And this time even more because it's something the nation has never won before."

In other team finals, the heavily favored United States women's basketball team plays France, Norway takes on Montenegro in women's handball and it's the United States against Brazil in women's volleyball.

The Netherlands women's hockey team successfully defended its Olympic title on Friday by beating Argentina 2-0 at the Riverbank Arena and the country's men will attempt to make it a double Dutch hockey celebration when they take on defending champion Germany on Saturday night.