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Togo takes their first medal ever in the Summer Games
Togo have won their first ever medal in a Summer Olympics with a bronze in the single kayak slalom.
- AP
- Published: 23:59 August 12, 2008
- Image Credit: EPA
- Alexander Grimm, of Germany, took gold with a pair of clean, fast runs while Fabien Lefevre of France won the silver.
Beixiaoying Town: Togo have won their first ever medal in a Summer Olympics with a bronze in the single kayak slalom.
Benjamin Boukpeti, of Togo, slammed his paddle in the frothy water to celebrate taking third place and his nation's first medal.
The crowd cheered wildly as Boukpeti neared the end of the whitewater course. He slapped hands with fans from his kayak, and his paddle snapped in half, although he hardly seemed to care.
German winner
Alexander Grimm, of Germany, took gold with a pair of clean, fast runs while Fabien Lefevre of France won the silver.
Speaking through an interpretor, Boukpeti said: "I really don't know yet what this quite represents."
He hugged and kissed his French mother and Togolese father.
"They showed me it was possible," said the bronze medallist.
Boukpeti lives in France and only visited Togo once as a young boy.
Grimm, ranked third in the world, won in a combined time of 171.70 seconds.
Michal Martikan, of Slovakia, won the gold medal in single canoe slalom, his first since Atlanta.
Martikan took silver in Sydney and Athens, finishing behind France's Tony Estanguet.
The Frenchman finished a surprising ninth in his first run on the whitewater course, which meant he missed out on qualifying for the finals.
David Florence, of Britain, won silver and Australia's Robin Bell took bronze.
Highly successful
Martikan was only 17 when he won the gold medal in 1996 in Atlanta.
He is the top ranked canoeist by the International Canoe Federation and his combined time of 176.65 seconds was nearly 2 seconds better than Florence's time.
Estanguet, who was the French flag-bearer at the opening ceremony, said: "It was a very bad race for me.
"It's very difficult for me to explain why I was out."
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