2015 ICF World Championships Slalom
 
1
2
3
K1M
CZ J. PRSKAVEC
PL M. POLACZYK
US M. SMOLEN
K1W
CZ K. KUDEJOVA
DE R. FUNK
DE M. PFEIFER
C1M
GB D. FLORENCE
SI B. SAVSEK
GB R. WESTLEY
C1W
AU J. FOX
CZ K. HOSKOVA
ES N. VILARRUBLA
C2
DE ANTON/BENZIEN
FR PICCO/BISO
FR KLAUSS/PECHE

Canoe Slalom

Every Crushing Stroke - The Olympic Revolution, Part XIII

canoe kayak slalom usa scott shipley every crushing stroke sportscene usack

"Every Crushing Stroke" is a classic (book) about performance kayaking written by three-time World Cup Champion Scott Shipley and published in January 2002. "The Olympic Revolution" is the first chapter of the book and gives an interesting image of canoe slalom in the eighties and nineties. Below the last extract. The book has become a collectors item but can still be bought on Amazon.

Below extract number 13. Previously published extracts:

  1. 'Getting Started I' click here.
  2. 'Getting Started II' click here.
  3. 'Racing' click here.
  4. The Junior Circuit I
  5. The Junior Circuit II
  6. The Junior Worlds part I
  7. The Junior Worlds Part II
  8. Coming of Age Part I
  9. Coming of Age Part II
  10. Coming of Age Part III
  11. Coming of Age Part IV
  12. The 1992 Olympics Part I
 

The 1992 Olympics Part II

Scott Shipley, 2002 - Our excitement was infectious. Every new discovery was an uncovered wonderland. The Olympic Village was a step above club med. It boasted a private beach in downtown Barcelona, a video game hall built to host 10,000 athletes, a boardwalk, a dining hall with food from every corner of the world, and for us Americans, a McDonalds. I felt like a Neanderthal who had just been chipped out of a Canadian glacier and had awakened to discover a whole new world.

Despite the distractions we also had to get down to business. The Olympics eat away at your training time and I was struggling to stick to a training plan that didn't fit my surroundings. The organizing committee opened the gates for training just after our arrival with the U.S. squad but promised to close it a full five days before I began my race runs. Our team had laid out plans to do an extended camp here at the Olympic course, take a short break at a training camp in nearby France, and then train a couple more days on the course before being sidelined till the race.

My carefully laid training plans began to fall in shambles. I felt pulled this way and that by the different events that surround the Olympics. I was quickly injured after arriving from the U.S. and had to take three days off with a strained rib. Soon after I was rushing to catch up with my missed training and wore myself out to the point where my training was visibly ineffective. I took a break long enough to climb in a car and head to France for our organized break . In essence I felt like I was spinning my wheels and getting nowhere fast.

I tried desperately to take charge of my training. I skipped the Opening Ceremonies in favor of the sleep I felt I needed. I removed myself from the team training plan and began to focus on moves and courses that I felt were important. In short I was trying to find some sort of balance to the whirlwind of the Olympics around me.

In the middle of all of this the race sort of snuck up on me. I remember sleeping poorly the night before my event and feeling a bit dazed throughout the day. My first run was extremely poor. I just couldn't seem to het the boat moving. On my second run I finally found my groove. I was aggressive, sharp and crisp. It was the kind of run where nothing could go wrong and then it did. I was the fastest to gate thirteen and the fastest from gate thirteen to the finish. I had a great run except that I missed that gate. Ten inches off line and my Olympic dreams were finished. 

canoe kayak slalom usa scott shipley every crushing stroke sportscene usack I never realised until then how completely I had convinced myself that I would one day be the Olympic champion. That loss was the kind of crushing defeat that still hurst ten years later. Am Olympic failure is utter and complete defeat. Perhaps in the eyes of theses you know - those who truly matter in your life - you have accomplished something. To the rest of America any result outside the medals is a defeat. 

My most painful memory after those games was returning straight home for a race series in the Midwest. We had a race on South Bend, Indiana and I was coincidentally billeted with the same family that Italian Pierpaolo Ferazzi had stayed with the year before. Pierpaolo was now the Olympic Champion and my hosts were more proud of him than if he had been their own son. At one point I had arranged to meet training partners the next day at one o'clock for a mid-day workout. My host looked surprised at our late start and commented: "Pierpaolo always got up at six in the morning to train...maybe that's why he won".

It was like a stab to the heart. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout out about all the icy workouts and frozen clothes. I wanted to scream about chasing Rich-who might as well have been a training machine-for thousands of hours of endurance work-outs. I wanted to explain what it felt like to train so hard your lungs burned and you vomit on the deck of your boat before doing another run, another rep, another set. I had given everything I had for that medal; I had dropped out of school, I had lived on rice and beans in a frozen tree-house, I had seen my family only in passing as I traveled from one training site to another. I wanted to scream all these things she would never understand. 

The Aftermath

Our training group eventually began to dall apart. Brian missed the 1992 Olympic team. Rich and I both competed there but failed to medal. Those Games were essentially the end of our group. Brian retired, Richt kept training but moved back to school and I remained in Chilliwack, desperate to make up for my poor performance at the Barcelona Games.

My training situation changed dramatically. Rich and I would still train together on weekends but I was often away on training trips to Costa Rica or the East coast. Ironically, the year following the Games was our best year in terms of results: Rich was second at te World Championships and I finally won the World Cup. I had left the Olympics the previous year saddened that we had improved so much and accomplished so little at the Games. That World Cup was my redemption. No more hanging my head in shame after telling people I had finished twenty-seventh at the Games. I had transformed myself from Olympic loser to Olympic hopeful once again. 

Maybe it was these titles that got in our way to maybe it was just time to move on but for most part Rich and I quit training together except in camps at races. Although we never had one specific disagreement we did grow apart. By the time the 1996 Games rolled around we were still friendly to each other but never met outside of our team workouts. It was the sort of tension I felt grew naturally with the stress of the Games and also the sort of tension that I was sure that would disappear after they were over. Like a lot of disagreements at big races I was sure this one would fade away with time. This was not the case. Eleven months after finishing fifth at the Atlanta Olympics Rich Weiss drowned at the base of a waterfall on the White Salmon River in the state of Washington. He left behind many who miss him and I hope his legacy shines from the pages of this book.  

Editor: Jan Homolka