IAN WILEY won the European Championship kayak class at Augsburg, Germany, on Sunday, gaining some measure of compensation for his fifth place at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.
The Irish canoeist qualified for Sunday's final run in ninth position in a race won by Olympic bronze medallist Thomas Becker of Germany.
In the final, Wiley was untouchable, winning in a time of 111.46 seconds with a clear run.
He had a margin of 4.99 seconds over second placed Miroslav Stanovsky. Germany's Jochen Lettmann placed third.
Wiley now travels to Brazil at the end of this month for the final race of the World Cup Series and the pre World championships. He is currently ranked sixth in the World Cup and seventh in the world rankings. Wiley will be joined in Brazil by Mike Corcoran, who has a current World Cup ranking of 14th and world ranking of 17th in the C1 class.
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