Olympic Canoeing 2016: Thursday Sprint Medal Winners, Order, Times and Results

Ukraine's Iurii Cheban set an Olympic-best time to successfully defend his London 2012 title at Rio 2016 in the 200-metre men's canoe single on Thursday, while Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos took bronze for hosts Brazil.

The German duo led from the front to ease to victory in the 1000-metre men's kayak double, while Spain were impressive winning gold in the 200-metre event, with Great Britain taking silver.

In the 500-metre women's kayak single, Hungary's Danuta Kozak blitzed the competition to successfully defend her 2012 title and claim a fourth career Olympic gold medal.

Here are the results from Thursday’s action at the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas:

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's Kayak Double 1000m	Germany 3:10.781	Serbia 3:10.969	Australia 3:12.593
Men's Canoe Single 200m	Iurii Cheban (UKR) 39.279	Valentin Demyanenko (AZE) 39.493	Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos (BRA) 39.628
Men's Kayak Double 200m	Spain 32.075	Great Britain 32.368	Lithuania 32.382
Women's Kayak Single 500m	Danuta Kozak (HUN) 1:52.494	Emma Jorgensen (DEN) 1:54.326	Lisa Carrington (NZL) 1:54.372

Full results at Rio2016.com.

Cheban, 30, only made it through to the final after a mix-up in qualification rules was resolved and he was restored as one of the fastest losers.

As a result, he was in one of the unfavourable outside lanes, but it mattered little as he made a fine start and just kept his nose in front to the line, pushing Azerbaijan's Valentin Demyanenko into the silver medal position.

Having won silver in the 1000-metre race just days ago, Queiroz dos Santos made a terrible start in the 200 but came back strongly and crossed the line to take bronze on Thursday.

Per BigSport, the 22-year-old has come through remarkable adversity to become a double Olympic medalist:

"

Isaquias Queiroz:

At 3: Covered in boiling water

At 5: Kidnapped

At 10: Loses kidney

At 22: #Silver & #Bronze pic.twitter.com/DiiTDlOUpr

— BigSport (@BigSportGB) August 18, 2016"

In the men's 1000-metre kayak double, Germany's duo of Marcus Gross and Max Rendschmidt were imperious, leading right from the off and opening up clear water over the rest of the field at the halfway stage.

They held off a late surge from the Serbs to claim gold, while Australian pair Ken Wallace and Lachlan Tame took bronze.

In a blistering 200-metre men's kayak final, Saul Craviotto and Cristian Toro of Spain had the edge and took gold convincingly, while Team GB's Liam Heath and Jon Schofield moved late to beat the Lithuanian duo into third  

Kozak took her time to get into the women's 500-metre kayak single, but once she hit the front, she completely dominated the field, leaving the rest to fight out for silver and bronze.