MacKenzie and Vincent paddle to C-2 500m bronze at Paris 2024
For the second straight Olympic Games, Katie Vincent has paddled to the podium in the women’s C-2 500m, this time with Sloan MacKenzie.
In a photo finish, they placed third in 1:54.36, missing out on the silver medal by just 0.06 of a second, as they were barely edged out at the line by Ukraine. China took gold in an Olympic Best time of 1:52.81.
Off the start, China jumped out to the lead, but MacKenzie and Vincent were not far behind. At the midway mark, the Canadian boat was running in second place, just ahead of Poland. But in the last 100 metres, it was the Ukrainian duo of Liudmyla Luzan and Anastasiia Rybachok who really picked up their pace, moving from sixth place at 250 metres to get the nose of their boat across the finish line just ahead MacKenzie and Vincent.
The Canadian duo had kicked off their Paris 2024 competition on Tuesday by setting an Olympic Best time of 1:54.16 in their first round heat, which advanced them directly to Friday’s semifinals, bypassing the quarterfinals.
They won their semi in 1:55.34 to claim their spot in the final, but saw their Olympic Best time beaten by China’s Xu Shixiao and Sun Mengya, who won the other semifinal in 1:53.73. The Chinese duo were the defending Olympic champions from Tokyo 2020 and had also won three world titles in 2019, 2022, and 2023.
MacKenzie and Vincent reached the world championship podium in the C-2 500m for the first time together in 2023, taking bronze. This past May, they won silver at the only ICF World Cup they entered this year, finishing behind only Xu and Sun.
Vincent won bronze with Laurence Vincent Lapointe at Tokyo 2020, where women’s canoe events were included on the Olympic program for the very first time.
