Australians Ken Wallace and Lachlan Tame have returned to their best form to win a silver medal in the men's K2 1000 at the canoe sprint World Cup in the Czech Republic.
One week ago the two-time World Championship silver medallists had their worst ever international result, having to settle for a C final in Duisburg after a lacklustre performance.
But the change in form in less than a week was dramatic, with Wallace and Tame easily winning their heat, and following up with a semi-final win on Friday.
Only the German team of Marcus Gross and Max Rendschmidt finished in front of the fast-finishing Australians.
"The race was good, a lot better than last weekend," Wallace said.
"We're on the improvement and there's stuff for us to work on, being a few months out from Rio it's exciting that we do have stuff we can work on.
"If we were out here and flogging it and winning by a mile, it would be nice, but its also nice to have some things to work on."
Tame said the Germans had a change of race tactics, making their run at the half way stage and surprising the Australians.
"They did, and the hurt us, they hurt us bad," Tame said.
"They had a good gap on us at the 250, but we didn't panic, we kept to our plan and we came home not too bad."
Also showing major improvement in the space of a week was the K2 500 women's team of Alyssa Bull and Alyce Burnett, who finished sixth in Saturday's A final after making the B final in Duisburg.
"It feels pretty good, I think we've made a big improvement on last week and feel pretty good in the boat together," Burnett said.
"We're starting well, finishing well, so we can't complain. It's a strong field this week." The Sunshine Coast pair will head back to Australia next week to train, before returning to Italy in July for a training camp ahead of Rio.
K1 1000 paddler Daniel Bowker finished a close fourth in his B final.
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