Tauranga's Mike Dawson has added a silver sheen to an otherwise disappointing weekend for New Zealand kayakers, picking up just the third-ever World Cup medal in Slovakia.
The Kiwi paddler finished second in the extreme slalom final behind Russia's Pavel Eigel on the in Liptovsky Mikulas course, with Switzerland's DimitriMarx taking bronze.
Dawson made amends for crashing out of the men's K1 semifinals earlier in the day, when he missed four gates to finish 36th, 20s behind the leaders.
"I was a bit gutted with the slalom race this morning, after a really good qualification run which gave me back some form I've been missing for a while. It was pretty cold in testing conditions but the extreme slalom racing was a lot of fun - I managed to have a good qualification, which gave me a good starting position and meant I could progress through the first few heats.
"I got off to a good start in the final but just got caught behind one of the other guys, which let Pavel get through," Dawson said.
Luuka Jones also had a tough finish to her weekend, after finishing 23rd in her K1 semifinal and last in her C1 semifinal.
"I had such a nightmare today - I haven't been feeling good in my C1 and I've been playing around with a few things in it but haven't found a solution," she said.
"The K1 was a lot better and I was paddling Okay but I had a big mistake in the middle which was pretty costly."
Australia's Jessica Fox brought up a winning double and Germany's Sebastian Schubert broke through for his first gold medal in the slalom finals.
Fox could not have been more impressive in the women's C1 final, blowing away the field to win by more than seven seconds in cold and wet conditions.
Her final time was an error-free 106.34s, with Czech Tereza Fiserova finishing second in 113.96s. Great Britain's world champion Mallory Franklin finished third.
Schubert had to go back to Augsburg in 2014 for his last World Cup gold medal, but showed his very best form to defeat a quality field in the men's K1.
The women's extreme kayak gold medal went to experienced creek-boat racer Sage Donnelly, of the United States.
There is little time to rest for the Kiwi contingent, who now head to the next World Cup event in Poland.
