London: Australia won gold in the men's 1,000-meter K-4 at Dorney Lake on Thursday, surprising the favoured crews of Hungary and Slovakia to capture only the country's third Olympic title in canoe sprint.
The quartet of Tate Smith, Dave Smith, Murray Stewart and Jacob Clear won in a time of 2 minutes, 55.084 seconds. Hungary was a half-length behind to take silver and Czech Republic won bronze, pushing Slovakia out of the medals.
Their win follows previous Australian triumphs at the Olympics by Clint Robinson in the men's K-1 1000 in Barcelona in 1992 and Ken Wallace in the now-defunct 500-meter K-1 in Beijing four years ago.
The Australians were silver at last year's world championship but haven't been a threat at the World Cup events in 2012.
Their victory denied Hungarian great Zoltan Kammerer a fourth Olympic gold medal.
It was Australia's sixth gold at the London Games.
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