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World's greatest canoeist Birgit Fischer wins seventh gold and retires
SYDNEY, Oct 1 (AFP) - All-time great canoeist Birgit Fischer blew the field apart on a windswept course here Sunday to win her second gold medal in Sydney and then pulled the curtain down on her illustrious career. For the 38-year-old German, with a total of 10 Olympic medals, seven of them gold in a two-decade career, there will be no sixth Olympics in Athens. "No more competition," she said as she stepped from her kayak after partnering Katrin Wagner after winning the women's pairs karak 500 metre race. "Sometimes you just have to finish, and its great to finish on a high." Fischer, who started her remarkable run with a gold in the kayak 500m pairs at the 1980 Games in Moscow, emphasised her command over the sport with an end-to-end domination of the same event to close the Sydney canoeing regatta. Her seventh gold also made her Germany's most successful Olympian putting her one ahead of equestrian Reiner Klimke and swimmer Kristin Otto. With the exception of the 1984 Los Angeles Games, boycotted by then East Germany, Fischer has won gold at every Olympics since she competed as 18-year-old Birgit Schmidt at the 1980 Moscow Games. Her first gold here on Saturday, in the German women's K4 500m crew, marked her as the most successful Olympian canoeist ever but she played down her success story. "The number of medals is simply not that important to me," she said "Most of the medals I have won have been in team events, so the medals are not just my medals but are earned by the rest of the team members as well." When she won in Moscow 20 years ago as 18-year-old Birgit Schmidt, she became the youngest winner of an olympic canoeing event in the K2 500m final. After missing the 1984 Los Angeles Games, boycotted by then East Germany, the Brandenburg-born Fischer came back in Seoul for a three medal haul, two golds and a silver, won a gold and a silver in Barcelona followed by a gold and silver in Atlanta. She also holds the Olympic record for the most years between gold medals in any sport for a woman.
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