Kimberley Woods was inconsolable after receiving 56 penalties in her final run in the Canoe K1 at Tokyo 2020. The British Olympian had qualified second in her semi final, behind Slovakia’s Eliska Mintalova.
And there were high hopes heading into the final that she may be able to add to Great Britain’s tally of 10 medals at this summer’s Olympics having not received any penalty seconds in her semi-final.
But in her final run, Woods suffered a big error early on which clearly knocked her confidence.
It was clear the 25-year-old was affected by the mistake as she appeared to almost give up early in the run.
Knowing an Olympic medal was out of the question, she slowed down for the remainder of the run, picking up even more penalty seconds.
As she came to the end of the circuit, Woods had accumulated 56 penalty seconds before holding her head in her hands.
The tears soon flowed as she pulled up to chat with her coach in emotional scenes for the British star.
Olympic bronze medallist Helen Reeves felt emotional for Wood, who ended up finishing 10th.
“Kimberly Woods will be absolutely gutted,” Reeves said on BBC.
“She’s a superb paddler and she has plenty of time ahead of her but that first penalty really put her off. After that she just struggled to get the composure.”
Woods was competing in her first final and if she had repeated the time from her semi-final in her final run then she would have finished sixth.
Germany’s Ricarda Funk took the gold with an impressive run of 105.50.
Spain’s Maialen Chourraut came away with the silver, just ahead of Australia’s Jessia Fox.
Italy star Stefanie Horn agonisingly missed out on a medal by two-tenths of a second.
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