London 2012 canoeing gold medallist Ed McKeever fails to qualify for Rio

London 2012 gold medallist Ed McKeever has been denied the chance to defend his Olympic canoe sprint title in Rio.

The 32-year-old needed a top-two finish in the K1 200m canoe event in the final of the Duisburg stage of the Sprint World Cup, but was only able to finish fifth - 0.97 seconds behind winner Saul Craviotto of Spain.

McKeever appeared to be in good form prior to the continental qualifying event, taking bronze at the 2015 European Games in Baku.

However, the kayaker came up short, and is bemused as to why he failed to produce his best form when it truly mattered.

"I'm obviously disappointed. The two most important races of the last four years - the worlds last year and today - were probably my worst. But I guess that's life," he said.

"I can't fault my preparations. Training has been good and I had a solid winter under my belt. I can't really explain why and I'm not going to dwell on it too much, but it just didn't happen.

"The end goal was the Rio Olympics, which is off the table now so I will go away and reflect and see where I go from here."