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Running up to Rio 2016 ,
Joe Clarke was preparing to make his Olympic debut in the Slalom K1 , which was without a doubt the biggest race of his career to date .
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At just 23-years-old , Joe had fond memories of the crowds at London 2012 , and couldn ’ t wait to be in front of an Olympic crowd himself at Rio 2016 . His aim was simply just to put in the best performance he could and see the end result .
His best performance resulted in the K1 Olympic gold medal , something he knew he could achieve during the run up to the Olympic Games .
Joe recalled : “ I knew that training was going really well , probably the best I have ever been . That raised my expectations slightly than they probably were beforehand .
“ I really wanted to make the final , because in the men ’ s K1 it is anybody ’ s game in the final and I knew I could put myself in the mix alongside the top boats . I just went out there to put in the best performance I could possibly do .
“ On that day it resulted in an Olympic gold medal , so I am obviously very happy with that .”
Having never raced in an Olympic Games before , Joe could be forgiven for not expecting to be an Olympic Champion so soon .
During his semi-final run , he only finished third fastest , but was very confident he could put in a challenging performance just 90 minutes later to blow the competition out the water .
Joe said : “ I knew in the semi-finals I was holding back a little bit . I just wanted to progress through to the finals so I held back a bit and kept a bit of energy in the tank .
“ There were a few sweeps and things that I could have taken on a bit more which would have made me faster , so I knew I had that in the bag .
“ 90 minutes later it was my time to perform again , so I pulled out all the stops on the final run and it all came together with a couple of seconds faster .”
It was a fairy-tale ending , as the gold medal and Olympic Champion became a reality for Joe after he posted a time of 88.53 seconds , 0.17 seconds ahead of Slovenia ’ s Peter Kauzer .
Ten months on , and it is something that the Stoke-on- Trent born canoeist struggles to grasp and put into words , but he will forever cherish his achievements . Joe continued : “ The gold is the pinnacle . The Olympics is the pinnacle event of the sport . It is something I cherish . It is a massive achievement and I still struggle to put it into words .
“ I even have moments now where I wake up in the morning , open my bedside table and check that it is still there and it wasn ’ t just a dream , but it was a fairy-tale ending to achieve something that you have worked so hard for .”