Local wins slalom canoeing gold

Now to the Men's singles' Slalom canoeing final in Shandong's coastal city Rizhao on Saturday.

-- Local favorite Zhang Chaojun came into the final with a sizeable advantage over the other canoeists. He was calm through the competitions and made few mistakes, and would go on to take gold in 217.73 seconds. 10 Canoeists battled it out for the top spot in the final, Feng Liming and Chen Fang won the silver and bronze respectively.

 China is not traditionally strong in this event. The world's top rowers usually come from Slovakia and Germany which are powerhouses. Canoe Slalom is a competitive sport where the aim is to navigate a canoe through a course of hanging gates or river rapids in the fastest time possible.

-- We can see it's a very exciting sport and very entertaining. The canoeist needs to be quite agile to paddle the canoe and avoid penalties, which are incurred if paddle or body touches either the pole or the gate.