Nina Jelenc | Sportscene - 2012 was a year of highs and lows for Peter Kauzer, kayak slalom World Champion from 2009 and 2011. In a sporting way it was a year to forget. This was the first year since 2004 that he didn’t win a medal at the most important races of the season, but most painful of all was undoubtedly the Olympics where he aimed for gold and in the end finished outside the winner’s podium. On the other hand his lifelong wish of becoming a father was fulfilled less than a month after his big disappointment in London.

Slovenian kayaker Peter Kauzer has been among the best paddlers of the world for many years. He won his first individual medal at the Senior European Championships back in 2005 at his home course in Ljubljana - Tacen. Since then he has won numerous medals at World Cup races, European and World Championships. He won his first World Champion title in Spain in 2009 and repeated this success two years later in Slovakia, just a year before the Olympic Games in London. It was only natural for Peter Kauzer to set high goals for the biggest sporting event of 2012. Before the Olympics he stated he was only interested in the gold medal and he hasn’t changed his mind to this day. “Looking back now, I know what I was capable of. People asked me later if any medal would do, because after all it is an Olympic medal. But I am not sure I would be satisfied with a silver or bronze medal. It is true – I don’t have an Olympic medal, I cannot know, I might think differently if I had won silver or bronze. But I am a perfectionist and if you set a certain goal and finish slightly below it, it’s not good enough,” Kauzer said.

Looking back on 2012 Peter Kauzer says it wasn’t a season to remember: “From a sporting point of view this wasn’t a successful year for me. It was the first season since 2004 that I didn’t win a medal at the major competitions. As they say: ‘You can’t have everything’. I am extremely happy that my lifelong wish became true – I am a father. Once you hold your baby for the first time, you forget about everything else, all the bad and good things that happened before become irrelevant.” 

Nola

Nola, as Peter and his girlfriend Janja named their baby girl, has become the centre of their world. “Once Nola was born everything now revolves around her. She makes my days shorter, she makes me happy and because of her I wake up with a smile. It is hard for me to go to training and leave my daughter. Before her birth I always went for a coffee after training or had a talk with someone, but now I go straight home. It will be hard for me being alone for three and a half weeks during my training camp in Al Ain. Luckily there is Skype, otherwise I’d have to pay 1000 euros in telephone bills,” said Kauzer and added: “Now I wake up a bit earlier than before, although Nola sleeps well. When I return from training I cannot lie down on a couch, relax and do nothing, I have to occupy myself with my daughter. She is a very happy child, she smiles a lot. Every day brings something new. The only thing is, you get tired sooner in the evening, so you go to bed earlier than before. Janja is understandable, so we divide everything and I can maintain my normal training regime.”

London 2012

The London Olympic race is not forgotten yet. “It is hard to forget, because I wouldn’t change a thing even if I could. I cannot find anything that affected my performance and was responsible for me not achieving my goal. I still haven’t found the answer, but I hope I will someday. Things you do at the race, whether you make a mistake or have a dream run, is the best you can do at that exact moment. Obviously that was my maximum in London, although I know I am capable of better performances.

I don’t know what went wrong, but I don’t have the power to change it, the only thing I can do is to learn from it and try to improve on it by the next Olympic Games. After all I am improving. I was 13th in Beijing and I was 6th in London.

Kauzer took a long break after the disappointment of the Olympics in London and then enjoyed the new family obligations. He decided not to compete at the remaining World Cups, so kayak fans could only see him in action at the national championships in Solkan in mid-September. The long break was more than welcome. “I think this was the longest break in my career and it felt good. After London I couldn’t find the motivation to paddle. Even when I went paddling I paddled for 20 minutes and then I was fed up with it. So I needed time to get motivated. I did other things, I cycled and did some mountaineering in the nearby peaks, I was concentrating on my fitness. When Nola was born, it was easy to occupy myself with her, and I think it worked well. This wasn’t a complete pause, doing nothing for three months, it was an active pause, but it suited me well.”

New Challenges

After the much-needed break, Kauzer, who will defend his World Champion title in Prague, looks forward to the races and new challenges that are ahead of him. “I will take each season separately and try to get my third chance at the Olympic Games in Rio.  I want to paddle in the upcoming season the way I have in previous ones. I am aware of what I am capable of despite my lack of success in London. When I do my run the way I plan, I know I am capable of winning, so these are my goals for the next season, at the European Championships, World Cup races and World Championships,” Kauzer explains.

The course in Prague which will host the next World Championships isn’t one of his favourites, but the last time he competed there in 2011, he finished the race on the winner’s podium: “I am improving, because I was third the last time I competed there. If you’re good, you are good on every course. I know it will be hard competing against the Czechs, because they paddle very well there, especially Vavrinec Hradilek, but I think I am capable of winning in Prague as well. It will be very hard, but then again, which race isn’t hard to win? We’ll see. My goals are high. Even when I was third there with Vavro and Molmenti ahead of me, I knew where I lost time, and could be in front of them. I have had the fastest times in Prague, if you discount the penalty seconds.”

The upcoming winter part of training will be slightly different than in past years. Previously, Kauzer traditionally spent the winter months in Australia, but this time he’s decided to do a training camp a bit closer to home, on a newly built slalom course in Al Ain, UAE: “I look forward to going there. It’s a pity that Nola and Janja can’t come with me, but I think Nola is still too young to go to such places. I will train together with Luka Božič and Janoš Peterlin and I think we will make a good team. It will be great. I plan to paddle on white water as much as possible. We will train there twice daily for three and a half weeks, without a break. This shouldn’t be a problem, since I trained for two months in Australia having only four days break. But I’ve decided not to overdo it.

I think I’ve developed a good basis in the last three or four years, so I will follow the saying: ‘Less is more’.

After the training camp in Al Ain, Kauzer will also consider a training camp in Pau, France, but he hasn’t decided yet for sure. If the weather conditions in Slovenia don’t allow good preparation he might join Janoš Peterlin, who will train in Pau, and do some training with his sparring partner in France. 

Peter remains a force to be reckoned with on any slalom course in the world and we will look forward to seeing his return to competitive paddling and wish him well.