Interview: Yuliana Salakhova | Article: Nick Harding - Sprinter meets sprinter: Yuliana Salakhova chats to René Holten Poulsen - Beijing 2008 Silver medalist and 2008, 2012 European Champion (K2 1000m, K4 1000m).

René's greatest asset is his mindset, setting himself daily goals and slowly achieving his long term ambitions. “Talent is nothing without hard work. It only gives you an advantage in the first steps, after learning the basics. It's hard work that makes the difference.” He only wanted to leave the sport once in his life when these personal targets where not in place.

Physically, his aerobic capacity combined with high maximum strength makes him the hard-to-beat Viking he is. Opposing this, his lack of experience is his Achilles heel including knowing when to rest - where he is driven he does train when tired. He did not have a holiday after London 2012, it was straight off to a Nelo summer training camp in Portugal.

Qualified carpenter René's immediate goals are to go fast and stand on the podium in Duisburg. He has already had a fruitful sprint career but now he has his eye on firmly the ultimate prize, going one better than his Silver in Rio.

“Winning the Olympics is the absolute biggest thing. But for me a great paddler is also one who can perform well in K1, K2 and K4. And I'm very happy to have won medals in all 3 boat types over 1000m.” He makes a valid point, to be an all-round athlete it is certainly worth dabbling in other distances and disciplines.

Like many cross-over athletes he faces organisational challenges: “I think it's a shame that both the Olympic program and World Championship program is put together so that it's more or less impossible to double up in events.” Racing in his mind is more competitive than ever, but such event classification system could hinder elite performance:

You could say that the level of the events that aren't in the Olympic program has dropped, that's a shame [be]cause I'm sure that Women's K1 500m paddlers would like to race K1 1000m, and Men's K1 1000m, would like to race K1 500m.

As for his own effectiveness, his worst start was at the 2011 World Championships in Szeged falling behind early on. From this he grew as athlete, learning how he wanted to go about doing things and how to react to different types of training.

As for the future beyond Rio, he may branch out into other sports ahead of taking any 9-5 job that is repetitive in nature especially where he enjoys daily variety. He will leave kayaking once he is satisfied he has achieved everything he wants – that may not be for some time as he is ever Gold-hungry. 

Website René Holten Poulsen: www.renepoulsen.com

Maribo Kayak Club René Holten Poulsen: www.facebook.com/pages/Maribo-Kajakklub/42415318667