The Gift That Keeps on Giving

It is time for me to announce the end of a huge chapter in my life. For most of twenty years I have considered myself to be an elite slalom canoeist. From now on, I will be just a canoeist who hopefully does some other good stuff! I wanted to mark my retirement from competitive canoe slalom by looking back and giving my thanks for an amazing career.


When I went canoeing in the Scouts for the first time, I could barely swim. I am sure that I displayed no sign that one day I would be an Olympic champion and a consistent world-class competitor. On reflection, I really do see what canoeing has done for me. It strikes me a bit like Christmas when you are a kid, I have received so many gifts that my mind struggles to take it all in! But these gifts are not plastic toys; they are solid and I feel they will last a lifetime. Certainly a blog article cannot do them justice, so I have added links to other articles that I have written where I will attempt to more properly express and explain my gratitude.

Although I have won an Olympic gold medal at a home Olympics, and been successful at World, European and national level, I am sincere when I say that I value my journey in canoe slalom so much more. Along the way, I have learned so much. This knowledge is a treasure to me. I hope that I can use it in the rest of my life to help myself and also to help others to find their own truths. Through canoe slalom I have experienced life in a very special way. At times, I have lived with total freedom. In intense competitive situations, I was sometimes squeezed to place where I could truly experience the moment. It is hard to describe, but it is truly a beautiful thing. My journey has been shared with and supported by the most amazing people. It would have been impossible to do all this on my own, and the quantity of great people I have encountered makes me feel so lucky. Expressing the depth of gratitude I feel towards them is hard, saying a heartfelt 'thank you' here will be a start.

All of this is inside me now, it is a part of me. In the future, my ambition is to help people towards gaining the sort of freedom and knowledge that I have found. Although I hope that I will always be a canoeist, I feel that I have to venture beyond the boundaries of our sport to find a place where I can make a real difference to the world. I have no clue how I will find this place, or what exactly I will do when I get there, but I will consider my life to have been a good one if I can leave it behind having made a positive difference to lots of people. I hope I already have done, but I want to do more!

My plan is to keep paddling in my slalom kayak, but also to test out some other disciplines on the branches of our family tree. One of my big tasks is to spend more time with the people I love and to forge better connections with them. I also want to learn more and to connect more ideas together. I am looking forward to watching my teammates grow into legends, perhaps more so as people than as slalom athletes. I consider myself extraordinarily fortunate to have gotten to this point, and I am also extraordinarily fortunate to be have the full array of choices before me to take my life forward. I must thank you all and assure you that I will not waste my opportunities!!

Etienne