Finn Butcher with his cross-country skiing gold medal.
Photograph: Olivier MORIN / AFP

New Zealander Finn Butcher, making his Olympic debut and competing in a sport known as water demolition derby, was put on a collision course with history when he was thrown over a two-metre ramp into the foaming water at Vaire-sur-Marne.

The 29-year-old rower won his first Olympic gold medal in the canoe cross-country event held in Paris last night, beating British veteran Joe Clarke, who is carrying the flag for the new discipline, in the final.

Butcher, who passed through the last gate of the slalom course to win, looked back as if he couldn’t believe his victory.

The kayaker from Alexandra paused for a moment before raising his arms into the air and celebrating wildly as he realised his success.

“This is crazy, I still can’t get it,” said Butcher, looking emotionally at the gold medal around his neck.

“The last time I went upstream I was alone in the front. It was crazy, I just had a huge adrenaline rush, I think I’m still processing it.”

Ski cross, a demolition derby involving plastic boats, is among the new wave of extreme sports added to the Paris Olympic programme as part of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) push to include more youth-oriented action sports in the Games.

Photograph: BERTRAND GUAY / AFP

The event is an adrenaline-filled ride from start to finish. Grouped into groups of four, kayakers dive from a ramp more than two metres above the water and race through the course. Along the way, there are two upstream and two downstream gates for paddlers to pass through while their rivals push them out of the way.

The additional slalom event was added to the programme by sacrificing one of the canoe sprint races, the K1 200m, an event that Dame Lisa Carrington has dominated since winning her first world title in the long-distance race in 2011.

Although it meant Carrington would miss out on her fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal chase in Paris, the medal still went to New Zealand in the end.

Both Butcher and women’s representative Luuka Jones, who finished fifth in the women’s event on the night, believed the event’s inclusion played to the strengths of New Zealand rowers, representing a return to their roots – their days spent cruising the river in plastic canoes.

Butcher said his results ahead of the Olympics gave him confidence.

“I had good results early in the season, third in the first World Cup and sixth in the next one. So I knew I could compete with the best players and when you get to the semi-finals and the final, anything can happen from there.”

One of the first to greet Butcher as she left the track was her longtime friend and training partner Jones, who had just moments earlier suffered the agony of not making it to the final after finishing second in the women’s semifinals and then falling to fourth place due to a fault in one of the gates.