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Empty handed Germany's Schmidt wins gold; American Shipley fifthLatest: Monday October 09, 2000 03:47 PM
PENRITH, Australia (CNNSI.com) -- American Scott Shipley finished fifth in the slalom kayak event on Wednesday. Despite the finish, Shipley, considered America's best slalom kayaker, narrowly missed winning his first Olympic medal. Shipley finished 1.64 points out of third. The agonizing part is he could've had the bronze if only his right shoulder hadn't nicked a gate on his first run, drawing a 2-point penalty. The nine-time national champion has been around long enough to know better than to play the what-if game over his run-in with the outside pole on Gate 16. Sadly, he had several other mistakes to think about from his second run, which was nearly 3 seconds slower than the first. "I got stuck at 15 and left time there," Shipley said with a tight smile. "It was the easy part of the course and I lost time on it on both runs." Thomas Schmidt of Germany made two flawless runs, the fastest of each round, to easily win the gold. Reigning world champion Paul Ratcliffe of Britain was second-fastest and not even two touched gates could keep him from the silver. Italy's Pierpaolo Ferrazzi got bronze. In the two-man canoe finals also held Wednesday, Slovakian brothers Pavel and Peter Hochschorner were so fast that they won by 6 points despite a touched gate on their first run. Krzyzstof Kolomanski and Michal Staniszewski of Poland, the runners-up at last year's world championships, took silver, and the bronze went to Marek Jiras and Tomas Mader of the Czech Republic, the reigning world champs. The Atlanta gold medalist team of Franck Adisson and Wilfrid Forgues of France led after one round, then sank to seventh after taking 52 points in penalties on their final run. Shipley had the third-fastest time in the first run, but was sixth because of the penalty. When he saw his score posted following his second run, he dejectedly leaned forward in his kayak, his head practically touching the boat. He actually was leading at the time, but he knew it wouldn't last. He paddled his blue kayak with yellow swirls over to a rocky area beyond the finish line and U.S. team leader Bob Campbell came to console him. They talked for several minutes about what happened and what didn't, keeping an eye on the competition just in case. They broke up once Shipley was bumped to fourth. "He was hungry for this one," Campbell said. "In 1999, Shipley medaled in every single international event. I don't know if that has ever happened before. On any given day, you hope it can work out and today it didnt." Shipley was a medal favorite by virtue of his second-place finishes at the world championships in 1997 and '99. His previous Olympic performances were busts; 12th in Atlanta, 27th in Barcelona. This one is likely to hurt more. "I came here to win," Shipley said. "It is upsetting not to." Shipley, who grew up in the Seattle area, plans to return to Atlanta and put in the six months he lacking for a mechanical engineering degree at Georgia Tech. As for kayaking, Shipley plans to compete in the world championships next year because they'll be held in Tennessee, at the Olympic venue from '96. After that? "Be an engineer somewhere, I guess," Shipley said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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