Beijing: Meng Guanliang and Yang Wenjun joined China's gold rush at the Beijing Games Saturday as they won the men's flatwater double canoe 500m gold for the second straight Olympics.
On a day that saw the canoe/kayak spoils spread among the challengers, Meng and Yang made sure the host country wasn't left out, leading from start to finish to win in 1min 41.025 sec.
They held off a late charge by European champions Russia, who took silver and Friday's 1,000m runners-up Germany, who nabbed bronze.
"Our sole goal was to get the gold medal, and our dream came true," said Meng, who retired in 2006 but returned to the sport last year.
The pair lunged so hard across the finish line that their boat capsized.
"I almost felt out of oxygen during the last 100m, but what was in my mind was the gold medal," Yang said.
Maxim Opalev claimed Russia's first gold of the canoe/kayak regatta with a single canoe 500m victory.
Content to sit in the pack for much of the race, Opalev made his move with 100m remaining, overtaking Aliaksander Zhukovski of Belarus to win in 1:47.140.
Silver went to David Cal of Spain and bronze to Ukrainian Iurii Cheban.
Spain went one better in the double kayak 500m, as Saul Craviotto and Carlos Perez upset favored Ronald Rauhe and Tim Wieskotter of Germany.
The German duo were the defending Olympic champions, but their trademark strong finish wasn't enough to close the gap on the quick-starting Spaniards, who won in 1:28.736.
Raman Piatrushenka and Vadzim Makhneu of Belarus were third.
Olympic newcomer Ken Wallace of Australia surged past defending Olympic champion Adam van Koeverden and Briton Tim Brabants in the final 150m to win the single kayak 500m.
Wallace's time of 1:37.252 gave him the win by four-tenths of a second, relegating van Koeverden to silver and Brabants, who was gunning for the 1,000m-500m double, to bronze.
"I'm ecstatic," he said. "I didn't really know where I was. After the finish line, I didn't really want to look, but I'm so happy."
Wallace admitted that even in the 500m, compared to the 1,000m, the finish couldn't come fast enough.
"It's half the distance, but twice as hard," he said. "I wish the finish line came faster. The buoys just got from white to red and that's sort of what happens to your body."
Ukraine's Inna Osypenko-Radomska used a strong finish to win the women's single kayak 500 ahead of Italian Josefa Idem and Germany's Katrin Wagner-Augustin.
In the women's double kayak 500 defending champions Katalin Kovacs and Natasa Janic gave Hungary its second gold of the regatta ahead of Poland and France.
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