http://www.cbc.ca/story/sports/national/2006/08/19/baday-canoe-kayak.html?ref=rss
Tamas and Attila Buday of Mississauga, Ont., and Canada's men's C-4 team came from behind to win silver medals in the 1,000-metre finals at the world canoe and kayak championships in Szeged, Hungary on Saturday.
In the canoe doubles race, gold-medal winners Gyorgy Kolonics and Gyorgy Kozmann of Hungary finished in three minutes and 43.781 seconds. But the emotional victory belonged to the Hungarian-born Buday brothers, who completed a dream homecoming when they finished in 3:46.151.
"This is amazing," said Tamas Buday, 30, who along with his brother were cheered on by 25 family members.
"We also had a special thought for our 80-year-old grandpa, who couldn’t make it out here, but was watching it live on TV."
Maksym Prokopenko and Sergiy Bezuglyy of Ukraine finished third in 3:46.769.
The Budays were seventh after the first 250 metres and fifth at the halfway mark, but grew stronger as the race progressed.
"We played catch-up but we had a lot of energy," said Tamas Buday. "We knew coming in we were a contender. And our experience showed. We kept focused on the task at hand and never got overly excited."
Father an Olympic champ
Tamas Sr., the father and coach of the brothers, won two paddling medals at the 1976 Olympics and four world titles for Hungary. He moved his family to Canada in 1987 when he became national team coach.
Canada's C-4 crew of Andrew Russell of Dartmouth, N.S., Thomas Hall of Pointe-Claire, Que., Kyle Jeffery of Mississauga and Dmitri Joukovski of Halifax also made a comeback to win silver.
Germany won gold in 3:27.422, Canada finished second at 3:28.394 and Belarus finished third at 3:28.880.
Canada was sixth after the first 250 and fell behind to eighth at the midway point before surging back.
"It was fantastic," said Russell. "We figured the other boats would start off fast, but we stuck to our game plan and stayed relaxed. We were a bit surprised to do this well, but we have some experienced guys on the team."
Canadian just misses medal
Double Olympic medallist Adam Van Koeverden of Oakville, Ont., narrowly missed a medal in the K-1 race for solo kayakers.
Van Koeverden was leading at the halfway mark before falling behind Markus Oscarsson of Sweden (3:39.359), Tim Brabants of Britain (3:39.419) and Ben Fouhy of New Zealand (3:39.443). Van Koeverden finished in 3:40.169.
Other Canadian men’s results in Saturday’s 1,000-metre finals: Richard Dalton of Halifax was sixth in the C-1; and Ryan Cuthbert of Carleton Place, Ont., Richard Dober of Trois-Rivieres, Que., Andrew Willows of Gananoque, Ont., and Steven Jorens, Richmond Hill, Ont., were seventh in the K-4.
On the women’s side, Jillian D’Alessio of Sackville, N.S., was fifth in the K-1.
Competition ends Sunday with the 200-metre and 500-metre finals.
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Congrats!