Olympics-Canoeing-Vincent gets her golden moment with narrow Olympic win

By Philip O'Connor

PARIS (Reuters) - The final race of the Olympic canoe sprint regatta ended with one of the tightest finishes of the Games, with Canada's Katie Vincent declared the winner of the women's canoe single 200m sprint after a long wait to see who would be crowned champion.

In the end it was Vincent who walked away with the gold medal by a margin of one hundredth of a second from American Nevin Harrison, who claimed gold in Tokyo and missed out on another in Paris by a tiny margin.

"It was kind of a crazy couple of minutes, just waiting there," Vincent told Reuters at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium. "I was just excited, I knew that I had a good race, so I was just happy with myself that I went out there and gave it all and to see your name come up first is pretty incredible."

Harrison was obviously disappointed, but she was gracious towards her opponent after the narrow defeat.

"It is less than a blink of an eye, for sure, but that's what racing sports are, that's what sprints are. It's always going to be by measures that you can't even see," the 22-year-old from Seattle said.

"And is it fair? Not always, but it is what it is, and I think ultimately, we can't really fault ourselves for that - all went out there and gave it one hell of a go, and I'm proud of everyone that lined up."

Harrison revealed that she had injured ligaments in her neck, but despite the pain and discomfort she was still only a fraction of a second behind Vincent, who recorded a world-best time for the event of 44.12 seconds.

"I'm incredibly happy for her. That's got to be the best accomplishment ever. But I'm also proud of myself, you know, I put that time down too," Harrison said.

For Vincent, the long wait for her victory to be confirmed was worth it.

"I think I just tried to soak in this in Olympic moment and you know, the Olympics are about big moments. I just wanted to go out there just to have a good race, have a good experience and feel positive about it at the end," she said.

"When I crossed the line, that's how I felt and I ended up with gold, so that was just extra special for me."

(Reporting by Philip O'Connor; Editing by Christian Radnedge)