Lucien Delfour has been unable to add a third canoe slalom Olympic medal to Australia's tally, finishing eighth in the men's K1 final.
Delfour powered through the tough Tokyo whitewater course to sit third, but he wasn't able to hold his podium place with the five fastest qualifiers in the final still to complete their run on Friday afternoon.
World champion Czech Jiri Prskavec, who won bronze in Rio, blitzed the field to finish 3.22 seconds clear.
Slovakia's Jakub Grigar took silver with Germany's Hannes Aigner claiming bronze.
Delfour incurred a two-second time penalty for knocking the sixth gate, while he almost came unstuck in the bottom half of the Kansai course taking on some challenging late gates.
The 32-year-old's time of 102.33 was 10.7 seconds behind winner Prskavec.
Delfour was chasing Australia's third canoe slalom medal after teammate Jessica Fox won gold in the women's C1 and bronze in the K1.
Delfour's result is a big improvement on his 17th placing in Rio.
