Does being an Olympic Champion make team selection trials easier?

"Does being an Olympic Champion make team selection trials easier?" This, or something like this, was a question I was asked several times over the Selection/Easter weekend. My short answer was, "Yes and no". But here is my long answer, for anyone who might be interested.

Racing hard at Selection (photo credit Peter Milsom)

The "yes" part isn't too hard to imagine. Tim Baillie and I did race in front of an epic crowd, on an epic occasion and things worked out very well. It was intense, but we'd worked really hard to understand how that sort of situation might affect us. For me, and I think for Tim too, (but you'd have to ask him), I think the most important thing we had was the idea that we really could only do our best. At the end of the day, it is illogical to imagine that it is possible to do more than that. It's also a bit babyish to throw the toys out of the pram when you do your best and it doesn't get you to where you want to be. But I'll be honest, and say I've done that, often enough to hate doing it and not often enough to be able to guarantee that I won't do it again. I also really wanted to learn through the experience, about myself, about my sport and maybe, just maybe, something about life in general. Being totally committed to these ideas, I believe gave me the ability to just go out there and canoe.

Having raced the Olympics (and it should be said, grappling through the qualifying and selection process), does give me some confidence that these sorts of occasions are survivable, and in fact, more than that, are 'thrivable' - that is you can find an amazing place to experience your life, even if only for a short time. I'm living proof that there are sometimes happy endings to big moments like this, despite the ever present voice of impending doom and disaster in my head. That is a big help.

But this brings me onto the "no" part. The first day of 2015 Selection I woke up (admittedly after a fairly decent night's sleep) and started sweating. It wasn't hot, but my furnace was running! I sweated whilst eating my porridge (this mightn't have helped!), I sweated in my car (with the vents blowing cool), I sweated as we prepped the course. I was certainly nervous and I think I can say that I was in my Top 5 nervous moments. I had worked hard with Katie (our awesome sports psychologist) to keep the race in perspective and keep my focus on my inputs to our performance, but there was no way to deny that this was a step into the unknown. Mark and I had never been in such an intense race before, we'd never raced all 5 of the UK's top C2 crews in one sitting and we didn't really know how we would react as individuals, or as a crew. On the second day of selection, I was nervous again. The third day, guess what? I was nervous again! Despite knowing that we were guaranteed to be on the team.

But this I think brings me to why selection is so important and valuable. I honestly don't think it matters who you are, because in our sport, even the greatest athletes can be humbled by the power of whitewater. Even if you are amazing, the water can turn a perfect run into a perfect mess! So I think it's very difficult to take any result for granted, and it is hard to know that you are definitely going to 'make the team'. You can work hard to stack the probabilities your way, but that's about it, there will always be significant uncertainty. Getting selected is a test, can you perform under pressure, when you know that all you are really racing for is the chance to do it again, but on a bigger, more important stage? It probes your abilities for weaknesses, scratching away the perfect paint, and getting down to the imperfect materials underneath. And therein lies the value. Exposing these flaws is vital if you are to go on to perform on a bigger stage, it gives you the chance to see your abilities where they are, and so you then have a chance to work on them.

This is why I am so proud to be on the Great Britain Slalom Team for 2015. I have had a good look at myself, and it was sound enough. Work to do, but sound. Mark and myself chased and were chased by some excellent crews and we bonded more closely for it. And I know that every member of our team has gone through something similar. Every member of this team will now be be able to be better prepared when the next opportunity arrives to race on the awesome Lee Valley White Water Centre: The 2015 World Championships. Bring that tasty dish to the table so we can eat!!!

Race Report: Lee Valley Premier Division 14/15th March 2015

The first race of the season is always an interesting outing, dusting off your racing mindset that has been under wraps for the winter months and getting down to the business that you train for. This particular weekend was doubly interesting, as it was selection for the Junior and Under 23 teams. Our focus was on testing our racing process as thoroughly as possible, with an eye to making refinements ahead of Senior selection in three weeks time.

Our 1st Place Trophy from Saturday

Saturday's race ended very well for us, with a win. Most satisfying was the way we raced our runs, especially our second run. Our first effort was okay, but we had six seconds of penalties added to our time, and we also had some other mistakes to iron out. We worked hard to prepare a really good plan for the second run, and we attacked the run aggressively, but with composure. It was a really fun run, we were a little wild here and there, but we executed the lines well and made the improvements we had wanted. It was a great feeling to be stretching our legs and putting our skills to work. As well as winning the C2 race, we would have won the K1 Women's race too, which is sometimes a good marker, as the pace of world class K1W and C2's is often similar. So to finish Saturday in that way allowed us to say that not only had we executed our race process well, but that our race process could deliver some fast canoeing too!

As we were the first category to race, it meant we had a little time after our runs to watch the other competitors. The stand-out effort of the day was Joe Clarke's first run. It was an absolute scorcher! Joe has a really solid, composed style, but with some tasty tricks to add to the dish, and he served it up spicy on that run! It was a pleasure to watch and gave him the win that day.

Sweet glass model trophy for 2nd place on Sunday!

The next race on Sunday was another chance to get out and mix it up with the other crews. David Florence and Richard Hounslow fired an excellent run straight off the bat, and we had a bit of a tough run, again with a couple of penalty touches added, but some significant time losses too. Our largest mistake came in the 'Oval' section (the area just after the half way mark). We misread a tricky sequence, taking on a spin to try and make things a bit easier for ourselves. As it turned out, we did a bad job of it, which meant we lost a lot of time against the other crews, who all chose the alternative option. Between runs we analysed what we could and decided to change our plan. Our second run turned out very well, we sorted out most of the problems we'd had on the first runs and we were a lot faster. David and Richard did not improve, but their first run withstood our assault, and we came in second, by 1.14 seconds. Davies/Lister and Westley/Franklin also had a good go, but fell foul of the tricky course.

On Sunday, it was Mallory Franklin's turn to impress, she ripped an excellent run down to win the kayak women's race. Tom Brady won his first ever Premier Division race, something that may surprise people, as he is a very swift kayaker. It was also great to see so much quality paddling in the Junior and Under 23 selections. The standards of paddling at this level are climbing all the time worldwide, but it is hard not to imagine some of our young guns getting stuck in. It's just great to see such young athletes racing so well, against such good opposition, on such a hard river as Lee Valley. I'll have my fingers crossed when the squad goes out to Brazil for the Junior and Under 23 World Championships in Brazil in the back end of April!

As for us, we have a few more weeks of preparation to get involved with before we aim to book our place on the British Team for 2015. It's a very important race for everyone, and always delivers some drama. So I will keep you posted, bye for now!