Canoe Sprint World Championships: Liam Heath wins gold in Hungary

Olympic kayak champion Liam Heath secured a place at Tokyo 2020 for Britain in the K1 200m event by winning gold at the World Championships in Hungary.

Heath also won the title in 2017, but then took a year away from the event after becoming a father.

He returned earlier this year having said he considered retirement.

"You have doubts and wonder if you're past it, so this is really special," the 35-year-old told BBC Sport.

Fellow Briton Lizzie Broughton won bronze in the non-Olympic K1 1,000m event.

Health had progressed through the heats and semi-finals with ease, but faced a tougher challenge in the final, where athletes were chasing top-five finishes which would secure Olympic places.

After an uncharacteristically slow start, Heath powered to the front and finished in 34.86 seconds, edging out Serb Strahinja Stefanovic (35.04), with Carlos Garrote of Spain (35.12) third.

"It's absolutely incredible and it's amazing to have my family here at the sidelines cheering me on because they give me so much motivation," said Heath.

"To win today, win two World Cup golds and secure the Olympic slot makes it another pretty much perfect season for me."

Lizzie Broughton, a 26km marathon canoeing specialist, only tried the K1 1,000m for the first time last year

Broughton is a marathon kayak specialist who usually competes over 26km, but she demonstrated her shorter-distance skills with K1 5,000m gold and 1,000m silver at the 2018 event in Portugal.

She secured another medal at this year's edition by fighting past Germany's Sarah Brussler in the closing few metres to finish third in a time of four minutes 10.44 seconds.

"That was a little too close for comfort but I'm really pleased," Broughton told BBC Sport.

"It's an amazing start and really great to bank a good result heading into the 5km [on Sunday]."

Home favourite Tamara Csipes took gold (4:07.90) ahead of Poland's Justyna Iskrzycka (4:09.26).

A sixth-place finish for Paralympic champion Jeanette Chippington in the KL1 200m event and fifth for Rob Oliver in the KL3 200m final helped secure Britain two additional Para-canoe places for Tokyo 2020.

Golds for Charlotte Henshaw (KL2 200m) and Emma Wiggs (VL2 200m), silver for Laura Sugar (KL3 200m), Stuart Wood's bronze (VL3 200m) and a sixth-place finish for Ian Marsden (KL1 200m) earlier in the competition means the British team secured seven of a possible nine Paralympic berths and will target more next year.