London: Daniele Molmenti gave himself an Olympic gold medal as a birthday present.
The Italian powered down the white water course at the London Olympics to secure the gold the men's kayak slalom on Wednesday — on his 28th birthday.
Molmenti finished 1.35 seconds ahead of Vavrinec Hradilek of the Czech Republic, while Germany's Hannes Aigner won bronze.
Hradilek set the tone with a fast early run that few in the field seemed able to match. But Molmenti was ahead of Hradilek's pace much of the way and crossed in 93.43 seconds.
The 25-year-old Hradilek was just eighth in qualifying but put down a clean run through the rough currents of the Lee Valley White Water Centre and had the crowd gasping afterward.
Molmenti did even better though, and now has an Olympic gold to add to his 2010 world championship and trio of European titles.
Slovenia's Peter Kauzer qualified with the best time for the finals. But the pre-race favorite had a rather sloppy final run and settled for sixth — more than seven seconds behind Molmenti.
Poland's Mateusz Polaczyk was fourth, just 1.22 seconds behind Molmenti.
New Zealand kayaker Mike Dawson failed to qualify for the finals after being penalized 100 seconds for missing two gates.
This time, Dawson's mother had nothing to do with it.
Kay Dawson, a judge for the event, penalized her son two seconds for hitting a gate on Sunday. Mike Dawson still qualified for the semifinals, but he missed a wave toward the end of his run and failed to go through two consecutive gates.
Each miss cost him 50 seconds, putting Dawson in last place. But Kay Dawson was stationed at an earlier gate, which Mike passed through without any issues.
"It's a sport with so many variables. It's real easy to make mistakes, especially when you're racing semifinals and you're pushing everything to get one of those elusive 10 spots which fill up pretty fast," Dawson said. "There's no holding back and trying to play it safe."
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