Canoe Focus Autumn 2016 | Page 28

Olympic Review Highlights Canoe Slalom A gold and a silver in canoe slalom made GB joint top of the nations’ table in slalom with Slovakia. Rio 2016 ranks as British Canoeing’s most successful Olympic Games with the slalom and sprint teams winning a combined total of two gold and two silver medals. Joe Clarke wins GBs second gold of the Rio games Click here to read more David Florence and Richard Hounslow crowned a successful week for GB after winning silver in the men’s C2 for the second Games in a row. Florence has now won 3 silver medals in successive Games and he has no plans to stop there. Fiona Pennie showed consistently high form at each stage before finishing sixth in the women’s K1 final. There’s always a lot going on during the Olympics with jam-packed schedules of a whole host of sports. It can be easy to miss some of the key results from the canoe sprint and slalom especially with the time difference too! 23 year old Joe Clarke delivered the run of his life to win the Olympic men’s K1 title. Amazingly this was his first ever senior international title at Clarke’s first ever Games. We’ve compiled the highlights from two weeks of competition with the key information you need; if it leaves you wanting more, just click on the story to Richard Hounslow: Top to bottom it was a good run down and close to gold. I enjoyed the race more than I had in London where it was really nerve wracking and such a huge atmosphere. This time we are more experienced and more relaxed David Florence: read the roundup in full! Joe Clarke: I still absolutely love canoeing and I’m not about to retire. I’ve loved all the training in the build up to the Games and if things continue successfully for me I’d love to go to Tokyo. I don’t know what I did to deserve that but I obviously did something right along the way. John Anderson MBE, British Canoeing’s Performance Director: Joe Clarke, Olympic Champion! It was what I went to bed dreaming about last night and what I’ve dreamed of for so many years. Rio has been our best ever Games for British Canoeing with two golds and two silver medals and a lot of other finalists. Fiona Pennie: Sixth isn’t the worst result even though it’s not the result I was after. But I felt I gave it my all in the final and couldn’t have done any more than that. We’ve gone a step up from London which, coming to South America and doing that, is a massive achievement. You can’t stand still and canoeing will move on and we will be looking for those gains for Tokyo. 28 www.britishcanoeing.org.uk Canoe Focus Autumn 2016 A silver in mens C2 wraps up a successful Rio canoe slalom campaign for GB Click here to read more 29