Olympics - Canoeing: Eoin Rheinisch's Olympic dream is still alive after he scraped into tomorrow's Slalom K1 semi-finals. Rheinisch profited from a catastrophic error by America's Scott Parsons to claim the 15th and final spot in the next round.
A tentative first run on the Shunyi Park white water looked to have put paid to Rheinisch's hopes. The Salmon Leap paddler may have avoided any penalties but the sluggish pace left him in 18th out of the 21 competitors.
And with only the top 15 advancing through to tomorrow's semi-finals Rheinisch, who's time of 88.52 seconds was almost seven seconds slower than the leaders, was up against it going into the second
To his credit, Rheinisch was much more positive in the second session but his aggressive style saw him clip one of the gates and incur a two second penalty. With a combined time of 176.33 seconds not likely to be good enough, Rheinisch was relying on one of his rivals to slip up.
And Parsons, with a massive advantage over the Kildare man from the first run, duly obliged. The American completely missed a gate and was hit with a mandatory 50 second punishment.
With Parsons out of contention Rheinisch clung on to 15th and will be back on the water tomorrow where the top 10 advance to the final.