Jacobi, Taylor ousted in canoe semifinals

By MARIBEL VILLALVA

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - U.S. canoer Joe Jacobi took a line from his role as a motivational speaker to talk about his boat's elimination from the two-man canoe slalom race Friday at the 2004 Summer Olympics.

``This has been an incredible journey, and I have had as much fun as any one person should be allowed to have in one lifetime,'' said Jacobi after he and partner Matt Taylor, both 34, did not make it to the finals.

Jacobi of Ducktown, Tenn., and Taylor of Atlanta had the sixth-best qualifying time in Thursday's preliminaries at the Olympic Canoe/Kayak Slalom Center at the Helliniko Sports Complex. But they dropped two places to eighth after Friday's semifinal run of 111.14 seconds, two spots short of the six-boat finals.

Pavol Hochschorner and Peter Hochschorner of Slovakia won the gold medal, silver went to Marcus Becker and Stefan Henze of Germany, and bronze to Jaroslav Volf and Ondrej Stepanek of the Czech Republic.

``I won't say I'm disappointed. That's the wrong word. Of course, there were some small things we could've done differently, but overall, we paddled well,'' said Jacobi, who won a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics with Scott Strausbaugh.

``They gave it a good shot. They had a good, fast race, but they took some chances that maybe didn't work,'' said Bill Sloan, chairman of the U.S. Association of Canoe/Kayak. ``It's a Catch 22 because you don't want to take too many chances, but at the same time, you don't want to be too conservative on the water.''

Taylor said he felt relieved once the run was over.

``I was disappointed during the run. I felt the boat a little bit off. Now, I can relax because this stage is over,'' Taylor said. ``Now we can get back to our families.''

Taylor's wife, Kieran Cannistra, is eight months pregnant and made the trip to Athens, along with other family members for both Taylor and Jacobi.Jacobi said this was his last Olympics as a competitor, but he and Taylor plan to race a few more times.

``We love paddling together. It's so much fun,'' Jacobi said. ``I'm sure it will only be a matter of weeks before we're out on the water together again.''