Last to go at the Kolna Sports Centre after her morning's efforts in the semi-final, the German paddler battled the swirling waters which had just confounded Andorra's Monica Doria Vilarrubla, second fastest qualifier, who incurred a hefty 50 penalty points.

This time round it all came together for Lilik in the event where she won the world title in 2021.

Her final effort displaced Poland's Klaudia Zwolinska, who finished second to Lilik's team-mate Ricarda Funk in the kayak final, to another silver medal finish, 0.62 seconds behind, with Britain's Mallory Franklin taking bronze at 3.96sec adrift.

Lilik thus earned her country a Paris 2024 quota place in the women's canoe, as Funk did in the women's kayak.

"I’m so happy that I could learn from my mistakes from yesterday," she said.

"When I was going down the course I was remembering the mistakes I had made and it was a little bit hard.

"But in the end it was perfect."

Britain's Ryan Westley, European champion in 2018, has also added the European Games men's canoe title to his CV.

He finished 1.5sec ahead of the field at the Kolna Sports Centre, with Miquel Trave of Spain taking silver and the Czech Republic's Vaclav Chaloupka beating his compatriot Jiří Prskavec, the men's kayak gold medallist, to bronze.

Westley has thus also earned a Paris 2024 quota place for Britain.

The last part of the programme featured kayak cross, making its debut at the European Games as part of the inaugural canoe slalom event.

This involves competitors racing in identical plastic creek boats on a white water course.

Batches of four competitors start by sliding off a ramp more than two metres above the water.

It’s then a race to the first buoy, and, according to the International Canoe Federation, "it really is a case of anything goes as each paddler tries to steal an advantage over their opponents."

Athletes need to negotiate both downstream and upstream buoys, and contact is allowed.

Then there is a compulsory kayak roll.

Athletes only have a short window of opportunity to successfully roll their kayaks, and they need to do a complete 360 degree flip.

Germany's Tokyo 2020 women's kayak champion Ricarda Funk, who won the kayak gold here yesterday, could have chosen the relative sanity of the women's canoe final today but chose instead to contest what looked like kayak's own version of dodgems.

She came away with a silver medal behind Ukraine's Viktoriia Us and ahead of bronze medallist Martina Wegman of The Netherlands.

Ondrej Tunka won the men's kayak cross title, with Felix Oschmautz of Austria taking silver and bronze going to Vit Prindis of the Czech Republic.