[ PAN AM GAMES ]
2 Hawaii kayakers
earn Pan Am silver
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic >> Two paddlers from Windward Oahu claimed silver medals in the Pan American Games kayak competition yesterday at Lago Rincon.
Kailua's Kathy Colin helped the United States to a silver in the women's K4 (four-person kayak) 1,000-meter final with a time of 1 minute, 39.91 seconds. The crew finished second to Canada, which won the race with a time of 1:38.95.
Brandon Woods of Kaneohe teamed with Benjie Lewis of Miami to finish second in the men's K2 1,000-meter final. The duo recovered from a slow start to finish in a time of 3:22.10.
"We false-started and got called for it so we were very careful on the next start and unfortunately our start was way off," Woods said. "The boat kind of flopped at the start and we were in last place by a couple of boat lengths.
"Everybody else slowed down with about 250 meters to go and we just kept going."
The women's K4 crew of Colin, Sonrisa Reed (Gainesville, Ga.), Ruth Nortje (Whitehouse Station, N.J.) and Kari-Jean McKenzie (Richmond, B.C.) had raced together just two times before the Pan Am Games and set a personal best in yesterday's race.
"We had to work together so we tried to settle to a good rhythm," Colin said. "After 250 meters we focused on our legs because this type of boat is tippy. This race was rock solid."
In swimming, Michael Raab led the imposing U.S. team to another big night in the pool. The Americans won four races, including Raab's 200-meter butterfly triumph in a personal-best 1 minute, 57.33 seconds.
That beat his record time in the preliminaries of 1:57.54.
"A lot of people are bagging the morning swim," he said. "I looked at the race analysis, I adjusted my strategy a little bit and dropped a couple tenths."
Peter Marshall of Atlanta took the 100 backstroke ahead of George Bovell of Trinidad and Tobago.
Morgan Hentzen of La Habra Heights, Calif., and Rachel Burke, of Bethesda, Md., went 1-2 in the women's 800 freestyle, a race never in doubt from the outset. There were no prelims for the event because of the high temperature in the pool, which didn't bother the Americans.
Then the U.S. women took the 400-meter medley relay by nearly eight seconds over Canada, setting a Pan Ams mark of 4:05.92.
Dianna MacManus, Staciana Stitts, Dana Vollmer and Amanda Weir had open water after the first leg.
"We want to dominate," said women's coach Bill Rose. "But we want to dominate in a classy way."
The U.S. men couldn't do much of anything against Brazil in the volleyball bronze medal match, with the Brazilians sweeping 25-23, 25-17, 25-20 in 79 minutes.
In the gold-medal match, Venezuela beat Cuba 25-23, 25-18, 25-20.
Vic Wunderle beat countryman Guy Krueger 109-106 in the men's archery final after twice setting games records in earlier rounds. It was the fifth Pan Ams gold medal for Wunderle, of Mason City, Ill.
"I'm ecstatic because our team shot really well and we finished in first, second and third like we hoped we would," Wunderle said.
Although Glenn Meyers of Grand Rapids, Mich., won his bronze medal match, he was not allowed to collect the medal. Games rules prohibit a sweep of medals by one country.
