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Jake Michaels, Senior Editor
PARIS – Tom Green and Jean van der Westhuyzen narrowly missed adding another gold medal to Australia’s Olympic tally, having to settle for bronze in the men’s K2 500m.
The Australian duo won the K2 1000m in Tokyo three years ago, their first race together on the international stage, but this discipline was replaced by the half distance in the Paris program.
Green and van der Westhuyzen had proven themselves to be the best of the field in their semi-final at the Stade Nautique de Vaires-sur-Marne earlier that day, setting an Olympic record with a time of 1:26.85.
That time would have won them gold in the final on Friday afternoon. Instead, they finished in third place with a time of 1:27.29, 0.42 seconds behind the German pair Max Lemke and Jacob Schopf, who took gold, and 0.14 seconds behind the Hungarian boat of Sandor Totka and Bence Nadas.
READ: Who won Australia’s gold medals in Paris?
Australia remains third in the medal count from Paris with 18 gold, 14 silver and 14 bronze medals. Hosts France and Great Britain are in fourth and fifth place respectively with 14 gold medals. Japan and South Korea have 13 each.
