LONG BEFORE he crossed the finish line of an Olympic race, Eirik Larsen decided he no longer wanted his Canadian friend, Adam van Koeverden, training with him any more. So he did what he thought was best. He quietly orchestrated his removal.

Larsen had his coach do the dirty work, and slyly admitted so yesterday, in a tale of two kayakers, one of them Canadian, the other Norwegian.

"(Coach Orjan) Madsen came to me up and said 'You're getting too dangerous," van Koeverden said. "You'll have to go.' "

He was getting too dangerous and he did have to go. And all the while, before Larsen won gold and van Koeverden won bronze, the Canadian thought the coach from Norway wanted him out. But it was Larsen, his friend, his roommate, his opponent, who wanted him gone.

"My decision," said Larsen, the impressive winner yesterday in the men's K-1 1,000-metre race here at Schinias, Greece. "But of course, I told (Adam) it was my coach who came up with the decision. I didn't want to tell him.

"I chose not to train so much with him because he took a big step last year (training in Norway). Of course, I was afraid of him for this race.

"I'm just happy that I beat him and I'm happy that he got a medal."

So there they were yesterday, after van Koeveren took the early lead and Larsen dominated the second half of the race, happy, standing beside each other on the medal podium, posing for pictures, hugging, waving to the crowd at Schinias, brothers in arms, interpretations aside. One helping the other to get here. Just not all the way.

When van Koeverden first went to train with the best in Oslo, he was, if you excuse the pun, a little name in kayaking. But by the time he left the program -- after being exposed to Larsen, Madsen and the legendary paddler Knut Holmann -- he had finished as high as second in the world in this event.

"I can say I've learned what I know from Eirik," said van Koeverden, the kid from Oakville who is still only 22. "And I was lucky enough to train alongside Knut Holmann a few times as well. Eirik learned what he knew from Knut Holmann."

Adam van Koeverden did not grow up with one of those Olympic dreams we are too often told about. He didn't watch the opening ceremony from Atlanta or anyplace else and decide that this his destiny. He wasn't that big of a sports fan, hated team sports, and never thought much about it at all until his mother took him as a teenager to the Burloak Canoe Club.

"It wasn't like I sat in the boat for the first time, looked around and said 'One day, I'm going to win an Olympic medal.' I didn't think that way."

But the day he never thought about came yesterday and when he stood on the podium wearing his white and red, with a laurel on his head and a medal around his neck, he wanted the moment to last forever.

He wanted more time on a stage he never even began contemplating until success started to go his way the past two years.

"My friends in high school, when I was going to the Olympic trials in 2000 were saying 'Oh man, if you make it that's great.' And they all had the attitude, like, getting there is 99% of it, you can always say you went to the Olympics. And once you're there, who cares?

"I never wanted to look at it like that. I thought it was a real copout to say, 'I'm just happy to be there.' I never wanted to be able to say that."

He probably can say it now. Yesterday, he was happy to be on the podium.

TOO FOCUSED

But truly, he never thought that way. He was too focused on discovering what he might be. Two years ago he made a decision to leave Canada. It wasn't easy or inexpensive. He went to Australia, to Norway to Florida, and trained with the best in the world. He never thought Olympics until he made the Olympics and he never thought medal until he got to Athens. But Larsen thought about it.

"I'm glad I did what I did," he said of having van Koeverden sent home. "We are friends, but we are competitors. He learned a lot from us. He didn't need to learn everything."