Wallace claims gold in K1 500m

Wallace claims gold in K1 500m

"Ken-garoo" Ken Wallace today took a huge leap into Australia's kayaking record books by surpassing Clint Robinson's record Olympic haul with a gold medal in the K1 500m at the Beijing Games.

The 25-year-old Gold Coast lifeguard stormed home to pip Canadian world champion Adam van Koeverden near the line.

Van Koeverden took silver, 0.378 seconds behind Wallace (1:37.25), while K1 1000m gold medalist Britain's Tim Brabants was close behind in third.

Wallace's breakthrough gold came a day after his bronze medal in the K1 1000m event.

Wallace celebrated by jumping into an inflatable life raft and then taking a dip in the lake at Shunyi Olympic Canoeing Park.

His haul in his maiden Olympic campaign surpasses the efforts of Robinson who grabbed one gold in Barcelona 16 years ago and Nathan Baggaley who took home two silver medals at the 2004 Athens Games.

Wallace's victory came just two days after he almost wrecked his own campaign in his K1 500m semi-final.

Wallace, known as "Ken-garoo" by European paddlers, only snuck into the final as the slowest qualifier after being forced to make an unorthodox dash for the start line when he left for his warm-up paddle too late.

With the semi-final about to start, the laidback lifesaver had to jump out of the warm-up lake and carry his kayak over a bush fence to make the start line.