Kayak Singles, Slalom, Men

Unlike Bradley Forbes-Cryans, the reigning Olympic champion Joe Clarke did not make it into the Great Britain team. The reigning world champion, Jiří Prskavec of the Czech Republic, who also won bronze at the 2016 Rio Games, was one of the main contenders to win his country’s first gold medal in the men’s K-1. Prskavec would have been Olympic champion in Rio, if he hadn’t had a penalty deduction in the final run. Germany’s Hannes Aigner, who won bronze in London 2012, and the Slovakian Jakub Grigar (fifth in Rio) were considered Prskavec’s main rivals. In the preliminary rounds, Aigner was the fastest ahead of Italy’s Giovanni De Gennaro and Australia’s Lucien Delfour.

In the semi-final, De Gennaro couldn’t repeat his excellent performance and finished only 14th. Despite a two-second penalty, Prskavec won the semi-final ahead of Boris Neveu of France and Michal Smolen, a Polish-born American.

In the final run, events did not repeat themselves fortunately, and Prskavec won without any mistakes. His perfect run delivered him a gold by more than three seconds. He finished ahead of Grigar who, despite having the best time of the semi-finals in 2016, had to leave Rio without a medal after finishing fifth. Due to cramp, Germany’s Hannes Aigner took the Tokyo bronze medal, just as he had done at London 2012.