Bellingham’s Jonas Ecker ended his Olympic campaign with Friday’s final. Here’s how he did

Jonas Ecker’s debut Olympic campaign came to an end early Friday morning. The Bellingham native took eighth place in the canoe spring men’s 500 meter K-2 (doubles kayak), along with his racing partner Aaron Small, missing out on the podium by just under three seconds.

Strong showing in the semifinal

After a third place finish in their quarterfinal on Tuesday, Ecker and Small kicked off Friday morning with their semifinal race, needing a top four finish to reach the final.

The duo fell behind early, sitting in seventh place at the race’s halfway point. Ecker and Small had to make up three spots in the final 250 meters, but the pair did just that, taking fourth place with a time of 1:29.51. They beat Hungarian duo Balint Kopasz and Adam Varga to the last spot in the final by just .15 seconds. The American pair finished the race .8 seconds behind third place and 1.38 seconds off of the top spot.

Eighth place in the final

The Washingtonians were back on the water just over two hours later for the final, but their race didn’t go as well. With a time of 1:30.02, Ecker and Small finished in last place out of the eight teams racing in the final. They finished the race just over three seconds behind gold medalists, Jacob Schopf and Max Lemke of Germany, and missed out on a bronze medal by 2.73 seconds.

The race capped the debut Olympic campaign for both Ecker and Small, who, at 21 and 23 years of age, were two of the three youngest competitors to reach the final. Each of the event’s medalists were over 25 years old and had previous Olympic experience, so you might want to keep an eye on Ecker and Small four years from now at the summer games in Los Angeles.

This story was originally published August 9, 2024 at 10:42 AM.