Heyl's spirits still afloat

ATHENS -- Brett Heyl, the Norwich, Vt., native who had hopes of making the finals of the men's slalom kayak event, finished 12th in the morning heat yesterday, dropping him from the finals.

A student at George Washington University, Heyl struggled with two or three gates on his way down the coursing green water at the new artificial river that pumps in seawater from the Mediterranean. Running in 12th position, Heyl never seriously challenged the top six paddlers to get into the finals.

"The Olympics were great, but it's a pretty sour note for me to end on," said Heyl. "I'm just going to keep paddling and go to the Worlds, then look forward to 2008."

Heyl said he performed better in his Thursday heats, placing seventh and fifth. "I really was stroking better until today," said Heyl, who graduated from Green Mountain Valley School in Waitsfield, Vt.

Only one US paddler made it to the final round. Scott Parsons, an Ohio native, just squeaked into sixth position, but failed to challenge the eventual medalists.

"I made two big mistakes today," said Parsons before he knew he had made the final rounds. "I'll be really surprised if I make the [finals]."

Consider him pleasantly surprised.

"I'm just happy to finish solid clean runs," Parsons said. "In the past my finals haven't been so good. So I really got a lot of good experience. And just to be at the Olympics was an awesome experience. The athletes' village is really cool." . . .
Winning on whitewater runs in the family for Frenchman Benoit Peschier, though an Olympic gold is something new.

Peschier paddled his one-man kayak aggressively but penalty-free in both his semifinal and final runs, snatching the gold medal from Britain's Campbell Walsh, who was leading heading into the last run.

"The idea was to give it all -- without restraint -- and work as hard as I could physically as well as technically and mentally," said Peschier, whose father, Claude, was the single kayak slalom world champion in 1969.

Walsh took silver after his 0.25-second lead turned into a more than two-second deficit. Defending world champion Fabien Lefevre of France took bronze.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.