Germany adds two canoe-kayak golds

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DORNEY, England, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- Men's and women's teams from Germany won gold medals in the Olympic canoe-kayak races Thursday, the second and third for that nation in the sport.

Both Germany and Hungary have won three of the eight gold medals handed out in canoeing and kayaking, a competition that will conclude on Saturday with four sprint finals.

Germans Peter Kretschmer and Kurt Kuschela rallied to win the canoe doubles race over 1,000 meters, downing the defending Olympic championship team made up of brothers Andrei and Aliaksandr Bahdanovich of Belarus.

With 250 meters to go, the Germans were in third place. They won by 1.402 seconds. Russians Alexey Korovashkov and Ilya Pervukhin finished hird.

Franziska Weber and Tina Dietze were the winners in the women's kayaking doubles contested over 500 meters. Katalin Kovacs and Natasa Douchev-Janics were second, Kovacs won her second medal of the Games after being a part of Hungary's winning effort in the kayaking fours on Wednesday.

The doubles bronze medal went to Poland's Karolina Naja and Beata Mikolajczyk.

In the men's kayaking fours, the Australian team of Tate Smith, Dave Smith, Murray Stewart and Jacob Clear was the winner after leading from start to finish. They defeated teams from Hungary and the Czech Republic.

The gold medal in the women's kayaking 500-meter singles went to Danuta Kozak of Hungary, who also was a member of the kayak fours squad that won gold 24 hours earlier. Inna Osypenko-Radomska of Ukraine took the silver and South African Bridgitte Hartley the bronze.