The Tokyo Summer Olympics will go down in history as the site where a young American made history.
Nevin Harrison, a 19-year-old from the United States, won a canoe sprint gold medal, making history as the first American woman to do so.
An American Makes Canoe Sprint History At The Tokyo Olympics
In a brand new event, Harrison became the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
She also became only the third female teenager to win an Olympic canoe sprint race.
Harrison won the 200-meter race by defeating her former idol and current rival, Canadian Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, who has won multiple world championships.
2019 world champion Harrison is hoping her achievement will spark greater interest in the sport in the United States.
New Zealand’s Lisa Carrington won her third kayak gold medal of these Games and fifth overall, stretching back to London in 2012.
Nevin Harrison Biography
United States sprint canoeist Nevin Harrison was born on June 2, 2002. Her performance in the women’s C-1 200-meter event at the Tokyo Olympics of 2020 earned her the event’s gold medal.
At the ripe old age of 12, she joined the Seattle Canoe and Kayak Club in Seattle, Washington, where she quickly became a proficient paddler.
She began competing for the USA when she was 15 years old, and she has since won silver in the C-1 1000m, gold in the 500m.
And gold in the 200m for the 2002 age group at the 2017 ICF Olympic Hopes Regatta in Raice, Czech Republic.
She won the C-1 500m and 200m events for the 2002 age group at the 2018 ICF Olympic Hopes Regatta in Poznan, Poland.
As of the 2019 season, she has been training with coach Zsolt Szadovszki and the Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club Racing Team in Gainesville, Georgia.
She swept the senior and junior C-1 1000m, 500m, and 200m events at the 2019 USA Team Trials in Oklahoma City.
Nevin Harrison Follows Olympic Canoe Gold with Another World Title
After taking some time off after the Olympics in Tokyo, Olympic gold medalist Nevin Harrison returned to win the world sprint canoe championship for a second time.
Twenty-year-old Seattleite Harrison won the C-1 200-meter sprint at Lake Banook, Nova Scotia, by a significant.66 of a second over Spain’s Maria Corbera.
Since becoming the first American woman to win an Olympic canoe or kayak gold in Tokyo, Harrison said this was her first time competing internationally.
Conclusion
It was in 2019 that Harrison made history by becoming the first American to win a medal at the world championships in a sprint canoe event (Greg Barton won world titles in sprint kayak).
She did not take part in the World Championships, which were held in September (less than two months after the Olympics) last year.
After being sidelined from track and field in 2016 due to hip dysplasia, she decided to give canoeing a try. Thanks for reading our article An American Makes Canoe Sprint History At The Tokyo Olympics.