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Finn butcher welcome to my podcast thank you thanks for having me nickname's the
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butcher that's an obvious one um another nickname is fun is that um is that a
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nickname that Australians gave you based on your accent or yeah it actually is yeah yeah not many people I mean no one
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really calls me that but yeah I think yeah that's probably from the Aussies I
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thought it's got to be an accent based one or or you you are just like um a loose guy and love to have fun a I hope
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so yeah I mean yeah like what we do is pretty fun so I like to think that we yeah that's what I'm about but yeah I
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don't know that was that one was definitely an accent thing hey so we're
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recording this in um Mid October 2024 how long how long has it been since you won um this bad boy the gold medal at
00:00:52
the Paris has it been two months uh yeah fth of August right like 10 weeks 10 weeks ago how how how does it feel now
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you you you carried it in here today for like a show and T um yeah I mean when you when you look at the middle does it
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yeah what do you feel uh it's still pretty surreal um but epic and yeah I've
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got a heck of a lot of good memories from from the whole games and then also obviously getting that thing was pretty
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special so um but yeah it's been busy and and yeah pretty tiring I had a good
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crash last week week I think all the the last couple months of adrenaline running
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on adrenaline has just just all caught up to me and when I finally got back to New Zealand and didn't have anything
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else on um yeah just parked up in bed for a week just buggered but yeah I mean it's um it's pretty special and um
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sharing it with people is the coolest coolest part and like when little kids I can show kids or or anyone who's been
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part of it or um stucked on it it's it's pretty cool yeah yeah and it's something
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you you have for life not just the um not just the actual medal but you know just the the title of Olympic gold
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medalist something that that can never be taken away from you which is really special yeah yeah it's actually crazy
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even to like hear someone say that still like like I believe it I know I know it
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happened I've got this thing to prove it but yeah like just thinking about all
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the years and um all the dreams as a kid just actually coming true it's just
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crazy yeah yeah there's so much to um to unpack and drill down on and and talk
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about including the strange thing for me is so you're 29 years old and you've gone from
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being um very well known in uh a niche circle of kaying um to being like like proper famous like household household
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name famous has that adjustment been how have you cope with that yeah um weird it's been real weird yeah real
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weird but quite quite cool at the same time like um even the last few days like I've only been back in the country week
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and a half um but just been back in Oakland for a couple days and um even down at the mount um with my girlfriend
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like almost every day there's someone who recognizes me in the shop or um and
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wants a photo or just to say hello and and congrats or something and like last night I was at the Woolworth down in
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town and yeah someone was like oh my God fizzing and it's just so strange for me
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to think about like 6 months ago that like I'd be in that same warw worths and
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no one would even know who you are my girlfriend was like Courtney was like oh yeah you you've got to start dressing a
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bit nicer you can't be you can't be all scruffy walking around cuz people know
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who you are what were you wearing oh nothing like just like clothes bit faded or whatever and
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like i' actually I splashed out on a new pair of shoes cuz my um the only pretty
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much the only per sneakers I had were um just like a standing per like Rebox or whatever and um I wore them to all the
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parties in Paris and they just got absolutely destroyed and I've been wearing them like since then up until a
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couple days ago when I got a new paer and um like when I came back out straight after the games I wore them on
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um breakfast TV I was like a surely it'll just be like a a waste up sort of thing and then they did a wide panning
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shot and I've just got this scruffy has destroyed shoes on so she was like you
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need to tidy yourself up we're going to have to look out for that footage and
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turn this into a realist what what brand are they oh just like white reok they weren't very white anymore but they I
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had a few rips in them and stuff oh they got some good stories to tell yeah they
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do they do for sure is that what you were wearing those shoes when you met um Steven Adams uh yes I think so yeah yeah
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yeah they would have been hard to see from how tall he is yeah right yeah that how yeah so you went to an All Blacks
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game and I suppose like the um the Olympic gold medal opens a lot of doors and provides a lot of opportunities like
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that so you were um just rubbing shoulders with the All Blacks and Steven Adams Jason Jason Mamo did you meet him
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yeah yeah Joseph Parker was there as well yeah conversations with those guys or uh yeah brief ones yeah um pretty
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cool man like oh they just they're just cool guys and like just normal people
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and um love Yan and um yeah Lov watching the footy so it was yeah it was prettyy crazy and
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then like at half time they like oh do you want to go down to the down to the sheds after the game I was like what you
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serious yeah of course stuff like that it's just yeah it was mindblowing and um
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it's actually funny like me and my coach we it's probably I confusing story but
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we like I'm quite into mountain biking and like obviously stay away from it most of the time cuz I don't want to
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myself but um I watch a lot of you know the the YouTube videos or whatever and there's a guy Eddie Masters a kiwi guy
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and he makes videos and he's got this thing at the start of his his videos where he uh like hijacked the mic on a
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um on a live news cross and he was like and basically he's like this is going to
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be crazy and like me and my coach were sending it we're like watching it and
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saying it to each other like all through the games and I said it like to them right before the final of the kite cross
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and I like yeah and then like at the like few times before I was I told you it was going to be crazy and like and I
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at the all black game we like look at each other and I like what the [ __ ] like
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it's crazy it is it is crazy it's so cool and it could couldn't happen to a
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nicer guy um all right let's um start with unpacking the Olympics and then we'll um we'll go back to the uh the you
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know the early days and the 29 years that took you to get here so um yeah so what were the expectations going to the
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Olympics you shouldn't have won right um uh like I knew that I could win um for
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sure um so in the kite cross anyway I was I'd been second at the world Champs
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in 2021 um and also like had a few World Cup medals so you know it's all the same
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people that erase the games um and I was ranked maybe ninth I think but um yeah had had some good results in the first
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World Cup of the year um I was third and like definitely could have been in a position to win that kite cross is
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[ __ ] crazy so you never know um but yeah like we knew that I'll be in for a
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shot um for a middle and um there's probably some some favorites above me but you know we knew that if things went
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my way and that I could be I could be there for it and and the stylum as well like um i' same like first World Cup I
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was sick in um this year and so we knew that the same sort of thing like if I can put down my performance then yeah
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definitely I could be standing on the box but um you know it's all it's all
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just words until it actually happens so yeah so so best case scenario is obviously what happened um for you what
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would have been like like your entry level entry level scenario like what would would you have been happy to make
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the finals and not middle would that have still been a success uh like yeah I mean It's tricky to say because you know
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if you make the final and don't middle that means you're fourth and there's
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only four in the final so it's like if you don't get a middle it's pretty
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Savage um and so I mean like I think the top eight so the semi-finals at sort of any race is kind of
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where all the real favorites start coming together and so if you can be consistently in that top eight then you
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anything can happen from there you know like then the race is just it's on um so I think I would have been
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disappointed if I wasn't in the semi-final um but then yeah to be able to I think the way that
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the um like the draw worked out too then there was like some kind of lower seeds
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that were coming up through the the rounds for whatever reason like the high seeds made mistakes in the earlier runs
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so then actually like going from the semi-final the final was probably like a little easier than it would be at like a
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World Cup say um yeah just the nature of the Olympics so yeah I mean it's good
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not to have to think about if it would would have been a failure I mean I enjoyed the whole thing and I think that
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was the main thing that we wanted to do I actually listened to um a podcast with
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Lisa Carrington the other day um and she was saying like real similar things to to how we wanted to approach the games
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and um you know she's an absolute weapon and but yeah like sitting on the start
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line I was like yeah I've like loved this whole experience and the whole process and I think that was the success
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and then you know the outcome would be what it was and it was pretty good so yeah I mean yeah you did and you looked
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so relaxed at the start of the start of the final and um the commentators there's a line they say they say uh you
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can never count this man out yeah which to me says you know you weren't the red
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hot favorite and there was um a guy Joe Clark the three time world champ so he got the silver mle yep so that he would
00:10:39
have been disappointed yeah I think yeah I think he was um pretty disappointed like yeah as you say like he's probably
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the one to beat um he's probably what worked for me at the games would have been his like bread and
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butter well not bread and butter but that's like his strength as the start he's super powerful and um getting off
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the start first is like that's his goto and um that's what I did really well and
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in the final he didn't get off the start well and he ended up just bumping with
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the German for a half a second and then I was away laughing and um not that I was laughing but you
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know yeah I mean there's no one in front of you so you know you're in the lead
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and you're not you're not fighting with the I know like I I'm probably going to
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say some dumb stuff cuz I know absolutely nothing nothing about your sport um but it's an incredible race to watch
00:11:33
like legitimately like if I was if I was there with you if I was the fifth the fifth kayak I I'd still be at the top of
00:11:40
the start two two chicken [ __ ] to go down that start looks terrifying they drop is it is it for someone that's
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never done it before is it is it um just impossibly difficult to imagine how scary it is
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um yeah probably would it snap me in a half um no you'd be right you'd be right
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that one anyway anyway you'd be all right the one in Paris it's quite high
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but cuz the ramp is quite long it it actually slides you in like basically if you did nothing You' like skim out um
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you know you'd land kind of flat and you'd go but then You' probably fall out
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after that but um but it's pretty scary because when you're sitting up there
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you're you're horizontal right and you can't see the water so or you can see
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just like the crowd in front of you and then you just feel like you're floating
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on top of a bridge but then once it drops it's actually all good cuz you you
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can see the ramp and then see where you're going to go but the one we've got
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in Oakland's terrifying cuz there's no the one out in the one out in Southland
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yeah so the ramp we have because like the one at the games has like a gate in front of you so it kind of feels like
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you're a little bit safe like you've got something in front of you to stop you
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sliding off one and all in Monaco there's nothing in front of you so you're just like floating and there's
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you can't see anything below you and you're just looking out to like Horizon
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you're I don't know 5 in the or something but it's pretty sick it's such
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a good feeling when you slide off it um like it's just instant speed so it's
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cool yeah it's it's incredible and how long does it go for like a minute and a
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half yeah yeah I think the time trials were around about 60 seconds yeah it's
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over so Qui the same but there's so much that goes on in there and another thing
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I found intriguing like watching the um the you the buildup to the start is um yeah as you mentioned before four people
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in the final just when the camera focuses on everyone like the German guy next to you who by
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the way I think is the the happiest bronze medalist ever in the history of the world yeah um he looked uh I was
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going to say he looked terrified I suppose it was just his like pre-race thing like he could you hear what he was
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saying I don't know it was in German but yeah like so he was talking to himself
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obviously running through what he Joe cuz Joe and I had talked about it we talked about it after the race and we
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were like I think it was at the party maybe and we were all talking to each other and we Joe was like what are you
00:13:59
what are you on about on the ramp man like what are you doing because what were you doing like the guy I um so his
00:14:04
name's Noah oh yeah and like he was I don't know what he was doing he was kind
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of moving around and saying all this stuff to himself and he had his eyes closed and all sorts of jazz and I was
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just sitting there like this guy's like tripping out what's going on you CU I I
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saw him I thought oh this guy looks looks petrified out of his depth but um but then he like he had a had a great
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run had a great result so it obviously works for him um you just look so chill you look so happy to be there yeah I was
00:14:32
like I mean yeah like I I guess like I said earlier like it's I was just so happy with being there and enjoying all
00:14:41
of it and um to be in the Olympic final and just steering out like basically all
00:14:47
in front of us was just the grand stand was just epic and um yeah I think you know like I let myself have enjoy that
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and then you know you know as soon as they were' get in position it was like
00:15:02
it's on now and kind of game face on but yeah it was it was sick and like I yeah
00:15:09
never forget being up there because it was such a good feeling yeah I suppose yeah I mean everyone's different so some
00:15:14
people obviously need to need to get themselves in that zone earlier but you you must have the ability just to flick
00:15:20
into game face mode in a couple of seconds yeah um yeah I guess so um yeah I think different people prepare and in
00:15:29
different ways and um oh mate Noah beside me obviously needed a little bit different than I what I needed but yeah
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I think um yeah I was just so ready to go already and um there's a lot of sitting around beforehand like you've
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got to be at the pre-art um sort of 10 minutes before you run and they weigh your boat and you choose your lanes and
00:15:52
all that jazz so there's a there's quite a lot of like time you can spend to
00:15:57
prepare and uh and do what you need to do but yeah I think I don't know what
00:16:02
happened to me when we go up on that start but I was just stoked and then as soon as uh we the start procedure kind
00:16:09
of kind of came I was like just into it just like autopilot yeah and then I just
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wanted to like I was just focusing really hard on the the gate in front um like the the wall kind of thing that's
00:16:21
stopping us um and just yeah I just wanted to hit the start with as much intensity as I could and and try to get
00:16:29
the first few strokes and see what happens after that cuz like all you can do is as soon as the the beep goes it
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starts to drop and so what I was doing is when the beep goes I was throwing myself from the back of my boat to the
00:16:43
front to start the slide a bit earlier than someone else um and that seemed to be working quite well and then yeah
00:16:50
trying to trying to land with the right angle so then I skip as fast as possible
00:16:55
and then get the first few Strokes in um with this as much as intensity as possible and um like if I
00:17:02
could do that then you know whatever happens happens if someone else is faster than me off that and so be it but
00:17:10
yeah um luckily well not luckily it's what happened but um Joe was on the far
00:17:17
on my far right so viewers left um and then Noah was in between us and uh those two basically when they landed they like
00:17:26
went towards each other so then you know their first one or two strokes is a bit
00:17:31
compromised and luckily I was just kind of in free free water I suppose and the guy to my left who was actually a a
00:17:38
canoe pedler so C1 so in slum he's traditionally only uses one blade um and he had been doing K cross a little bit
00:17:49
but yeah not heaps and um kind of managed to get through to the final just by taking advantage of different
00:17:56
situations that happen in front of him and you know like that half the game and kite cross is um you know reacting to
00:18:03
what happens and and so he was actually he's probably uh he's quite low ranked
00:18:09
or high yeah low ranked I guess high high world ranking um and he was a bit slower off the ramp so luckily I had
00:18:17
clear clear water to my right and to my left but actually when I watched a replay I did a right stroke to start and
00:18:23
then a left one and the left one as I was pulling it out came up underneath his bow cuz he was slow off the ramp so
00:18:30
he's a bit behind me and then I let go of my pedal with that left side did a
00:18:35
right stroke and then caught the LIF again and then did the lift so I never even realized until I watched the replay
00:18:41
and I was just like cuz I I just all I wanted to do was just be as fast as possible so I didn't even like think
00:18:47
about it that I let let go my pedal it was just yeah it's crazy to see like in
00:18:51
slow motion so you could you could have lost your pedal or how major is this I only had like one hand on it yeah um so
00:19:00
luckily like yeah I guess luckily I just grabbed it again and it was just like I
00:19:05
don't know muscle memory just to get it back I don't know I was going to ask you
00:19:09
if it was um if it was the perfect race but I guess it wasn't there's little
00:19:12
incremental things you could have done yeah I mean like nothing's ever perfect
00:19:16
in our sport which I think is what keeps you keeps you coming back but um yeah there's a few things like after the
00:19:23
first Upstream obviously I was leading I've got quite a fast rle which is good
00:19:28
um means I can make a little bit of Gap in that and then that's where you roll
00:19:32
so you go under the water under the yeah sort of limbo bar um you've got to go
00:19:37
upside down to a full 360 back up the other side so mine's quite quick and then um yeah the gate I was choosing the
00:19:45
Upstream on the right so you get to pick which side you go um the exit of that was kind of slow because it was real
00:19:51
slow like through real slow water and so I was still in the front but then um all
00:19:57
through the next section which was just down streams all down the middle of the the flow um Joe was just like breathing
00:20:03
down my neck like I could feel him behind me um and then I I made it but I executed the last little bit of that um
00:20:11
we call it a stagger sequence um really well and just made enough Gap that I could do the last after by myself and
00:20:17
kind of like our technique is to go into the up and you sort of grab it with your
00:20:21
elbow you like dip your elbow under and then you've kind of got the the gate in
00:20:25
your little I don't know control pocket I suppose and then once I had that I was
00:20:30
like [ __ ] yeah we're on here we've actually won this thing and what's um
00:20:35
what's burning is it is it your arms Burning uh mostly yeah yeah when does that start to hurt um like to be honest
00:20:42
I didn't really notice it in the in the head-to-head rounds it's more the time
00:20:45
trials um cuz they're just it's just you and you're just going as hard as you can
00:20:51
so it's like a 60sec effort so you're probably probably just over halfway down
00:20:57
before things start to like tie up um but yeah like it's you know we did heaps
00:21:02
of training for for all of that kind of physical side of things and um yeah kind
00:21:08
of like once you get to that like the time trial is pretty horrible actually because it's just it's just an all out
00:21:13
Max effort and there's not much um there's a few technical aspects but compared to like the traditional syum
00:21:20
which is 90 seconds or you know 80 to 90 seconds so you'd think it would be like
00:21:25
a harder effort but there's way more technique involved so you're actually
00:21:29
yeah you're using all different parts of your body and um it's not just like
00:21:33
thrashing your arms yeah so and and the leadup to this um say 3 months prior to Paris what did a what did an average day
00:21:40
or week look like on on and off of the water um like how much I I suppose what I'm asking is it's like the um yeah the
00:21:48
picture of the iceberg so yeah yeah this gold medal this is the the bit of the iceberg that we see out of the water um
00:21:53
what's underneath the water um well so like three months before we were in Europe already um preparing
00:22:03
so I was in Paris um being able to train on that venue um which makes a big difference
00:22:11
because then you become you know like you learn it you learn all the different wayes and how all the flow and the
00:22:17
current and the edies react um and that kind of thing so probably like an average day would be um either a morning
00:22:26
gym session so you know whenever nothing nothing happens in France before 10: a.m.
00:22:33
so you can't train before 10: a.m. anyway unless you you know you're going
00:22:37
for a run or whatever and um yeah so it'll be like a morning gem or a or a morning on the white water and um and
00:22:47
then something in the afternoon as well so most days there will be double sessions and um probably like I mean in
00:22:54
total around 90 minutes um including like warm up and that kind of stuff so we' we get like an hour slot on the
00:23:01
White Water um and then so you know either side of that you got warm up and warm down and um yeah so I don't know I
00:23:09
suppose an average day would be wake up and have breakfast and then either go paddling or go to the gym and um go home
00:23:17
go to the bakery probably get a big it God you you're so uncomplicated yeah it's pretty it's yeah I mean there's
00:23:25
obviously a lot of other stuff that goes into uh into stuff but you know like we've got my training week would be
00:23:32
structured um there's a lot to fit in because obviously you know there's big
00:23:39
physical aspect but it's so technical as well and we were juggling we are juggling still like kite cross and Salem
00:23:48
and I want to be the best in the world at both of them so um trying not to like trying to use them both to compliment
00:23:56
each other um as important and the Kay cross probably requires a higher like physical load physical input so um you
00:24:07
know like gym and then some Savage like interval sessions on the on the Flat Water generally um and then a lot of the
00:24:14
stuff on the White Water would be white water would be like slum specific like technique sessions working on um
00:24:21
different moves or different ways to do upstreams or downstreams or whatever and
00:24:26
then um also like performanc kind of session so we might do like a race length run which we call full runs um
00:24:34
and then you'd like either do that or a session might be you'd split that into
00:24:37
four so you know 15 to 20 second efforts um or courses um so yeah there's like so
00:24:46
many things and you can honestly like go down RIT holes of of different stuff but
00:24:50
it's all like a Juggle and a lot of compromise on how does this session affect the next one or the session
00:24:59
before it did you do gem too close to your interval session so then you couldn't be in the right intensity for
00:25:05
the intervals so yeah it's all trying to like work through how the week structured and um yeah and then also
00:25:12
like just even being on the white water is just really fun so it's like part of
00:25:16
that as well and what about um like nerves and anxiety and stress or in press leading up to like a pinnacle
00:25:22
event like this like so much so much work's going into this this you one event that you know you get one shot at
00:25:27
it every four years yeah yeah I think um those was my first games as well so you
00:25:32
were for the for the Tokyo games you were like a reserve or something yeah so I was second in our in our like internal
00:25:38
selection so I just missed out um on going to that so yeah like a non-traveling reserve basically um so
00:25:46
yeah first experience of Olympics and I guess leading up to it um it's funny
00:25:52
because I reference Lisa's podcast again but um she mentioned that you know about
00:26:00
I don't know two or three months out she had a lot of doubt and um you know like
00:26:05
can can I actually do this can I do the goal that we set out to you know achieve
00:26:10
or whatever and I I was the exact same and I think so probably like through those World Cups which were end of May
00:26:19
start of June like I was performing really well like I was second in salum and third in Cross of the first one and
00:26:26
then I was in the top 10 in salum again um I was 10th in the second race which is a really good result and then the
00:26:34
third race I was Sixth and cross there too so it was like a good really good block of racing and um showed that I was
00:26:42
in pretty good good form and even though we didn't really prepare those races um
00:26:46
but then probably after that I just started like doubting a lot of things and um questioning like am I doing the
00:26:54
right thing and I think it probably came from being in the point of the training block
00:27:01
where like you're just getting like smashed like physically you're just in
00:27:07
the hole and I think like when you get to that point then things start to like feel a bit average on the water like and
00:27:14
I kind of focus a lot on how I like on the feeling so the connection with the water and my blades and stuff and I
00:27:23
guess a bit of a a hole that I got into was like I'm not feeling good I'm not
00:27:28
feeling good and it was just because we were doing so much other training as well as like the little technical things
00:27:34
that um yeah you get into that mindset and I think it was quite interesting to then um kind of work through that and
00:27:43
and realize that actually like this is the plan that we talked about we thought a lot about we planned with all my
00:27:50
support team and about what we wanted to do and these are the reasons why we're
00:27:54
doing it you just got to trust that you'll come to the other end and and come right you know a week or two weeks
00:28:02
before the bug event and then you'll be like firing um so it's just like kind of
00:28:08
trying to get through that little dip that you that and then once you come to the other side you're like okay I'm
00:28:13
actually like sending it now it's I'm feeling good yeah that's that is exactly
00:28:17
the same as um Dame Lisa when I had her on um my podcast you know she talked about how you self-doubt Creeps in when
00:28:24
she's doing those hard training blocks yeah exactly the same yeah it's the same
00:28:27
thing and I think like my coach asked me the other day um oh what did you get out
00:28:33
of Lisa's podcast and I that's like the first thing I said I was like oh yeah
00:28:39
she was like in the same place that I was and like yeah and I think gardy had mentioned um Gordy Lisa's coach had
00:28:47
mentioned that you know like all gold medalists or you know anyone will go through that part and then it's like the
00:28:54
ones that end up winning or doing really well um after that are the ones that can find
00:29:01
their way through it um and then use that to like get better rather than like get stuck in that same rut so yeah it's
00:29:09
interesting I don't know it's um it's all just part of preparation for a big
00:29:14
event and um there was definitely nerves but at the same time like it was like a
00:29:19
a dream a childhood goal to even be at the game so um you know we did a lot of work um on the psychology side of
00:29:29
uh how I wanted to approach it and how I wanted to use the environment to give me energy
00:29:38
instead of like letting it take energy from me so um you know everyone talks about the Olympics being like just a
00:29:45
completely different event to anything else um that it's quite overwhelming there's a lot of stuff going on um
00:29:52
things take time and like things take a lot of time at the games there's just a
00:29:55
lot of like waiting just waiting for no reason um and like but I think the mindset that I had and like my coach had
00:30:06
as well was just yeah just to use like that environment and enjoy it and use it to take energy instead of you know
00:30:15
focusing on the things that you can't control and realizing that you know people
00:30:21
are just take time and piss around and do all sorts of stuff and um yeah if you can get energy from that and from the
00:30:28
crowd and everything then yeah you're going to you're going to enjoy yourself
00:30:31
a lot more so and are you are you a journaler or you doing any sort of visualization or manifesting or anything
00:30:37
like that yeah oh not so much journaling heaps of um visualization um I think it
00:30:43
like ever since I was a kid just you know visualizing training or racing and even you know just before I go or and
00:30:52
the days before I go because we so in Salem you get um you know you can train on the venue
00:30:58
and then the race course gets set on like the night before the the evening Before the Race and we don't train on we
00:31:05
don't pedal on those that particular gate set up um so we do a lot of well I
00:31:12
do a lot of visualization to basically practice that those moves before I you know before I Race So heaps of that kind
00:31:21
of stuff and um there was a bit of that going on um when I was in Paris before the games um and then and the months
00:31:31
before the games as well because I spent a lot of time there and it was it was quite cool seeing like the grand stand
00:31:37
get built rather than coming from somewhere else and just arriving and it was just huge Grand St so um as those
00:31:43
sort of things started getting built then I could I was doing like some targeted visualization work
00:31:51
on on like being in that environment when like oh now I know how big the grandson is I can add that into my like
00:31:59
visualization and you know when I'm training we're doing full runs or whatever and you know I can actually
00:32:06
have a bit more um information to add into there so yeah that's kind of mostly
00:32:13
what I do and then um yeah bit of bit of mindfulness work and that kind of stuff
00:32:17
so yeah you've been you've had a um sport Cy since 2016 so eight years yeah
00:32:22
what um what has um that person bought to the butcher team um he a lot yeah um so I guess probably when I started
00:32:32
working with her as Kylie Wilson um through through high performance sport in 2016 I was like pretty naive on yeah
00:32:42
on what it takes I suppose like anything it was it just yeah just an uncomplicated young man
00:32:49
fromo yeah so um but I just wanted to like try to get some techniques to be able to improve my consistency I I think
00:32:58
that's what I what I went to it with and was like Hey like you know results are a
00:33:03
bit inconsistent or performances are and and you know how can I um have my mindset to be kind
00:33:11
of stable when I you know when I start I know where I am um and so I think yeah I
00:33:17
mean we've done a lot of different things over the years but um there's a
00:33:21
lot of like being in the moment um there's a kind of there's a few big things like being in the moment and that
00:33:28
could be like actually physically being in there and then also mentally and then
00:33:34
um you know we got to back up a semi-final with a final and you might have a good run or a not so good run and
00:33:43
you've got to like bring yourself down to ground zero or back up to ground zero
00:33:46
and that's kind of like your you know to find your operating level and then bring
00:33:51
yourself down or up to that um yeah there's a bit of that and like I a lot of learning about myself and um it's
00:34:01
funny because your mind and like performance is I've said this before it's like a
00:34:10
puzzle right and you're trying to like solve this puzzle with different techniques and learning about yourself
00:34:18
and that kind of stuff and then at the same time you're solving the puzzle the
00:34:23
other end of the puzzle's changing right because like the context changes you change um everyone else
00:34:31
changes around you like you grow you learn different things and then that changes how you perceive yourself how
00:34:38
other people perceive you and like so as when you start to figure something out then like something else is changing in
00:34:45
the background so it's yeah it's just like a constantly evolving piece like a
00:34:50
puzzle and so it's quite an interesting way to to look at it CU it never stops
00:34:55
right what what what you did at this race that you perform really well at is going to be different to the next race
00:35:03
because everything's changed so yeah it's it's pretty fun but yeah it's been
00:35:08
awesome working with her because she's um yeah she's obviously extremely
00:35:13
extremely knowledgeable at stuff but she's also a legion so um she's cool to
00:35:18
hang out with and and talk to and uh and catch up about things so yeah yeah that's so cool were you were you um
00:35:26
reluctant or apprehensive about seeing um like a sports psychologist in the beginning or no not at all no no no
00:35:34
um I don't know why but yeah I was just like open to yeah real open like this is
00:35:42
you know this is another aspect of of performance that you know I can work on so um yeah I think I don't know i' had
00:35:53
education in the past which which made a difference and um and made me realize it
00:35:57
that was a that was a a good part to work on or or what but also um like Luca being around and I think her like the
00:36:09
way she spoke about um the mind like the Mind work she did and actually Kylie um
00:36:15
is her psych as well so um I think I was just like hell yeah like Luc has just won a silver middle I don't know if it
00:36:23
was before or after that I started with klie but you know I was like Lucas performing at an exceptional level like
00:36:30
she's doing she doing stuff right so I want to what she's having yeah so I was
00:36:35
like oh hell yeah you know I'll latch on to that so I think that's probably where
00:36:39
it started and yeah um as you go through you you learn how important it is yeah luuka Jones by the way that's who you're
00:36:45
talking about um five Olympic Games yeah and two medals bronze or no just one medal yeah yeah yeah so we're yeah she
00:36:53
was uh yeah she's she's a weapon um and she yeah I mean we were we were pretty gutted for for this year to not
00:37:03
um not be in the final in in The Kite cross because she was definitely definitely on for one but yeah at sport
00:37:09
unfortunately so so where were you um yeah go go back to the beginning of the games where were you for the opening
00:37:15
ceremony were you on the New Zealand boat yeah I was on the boat getting absolutely saturated it was so weet it
00:37:20
was the um what yeah what was it like being there because as from a a a TV perspective I I I'd rate it as the
00:37:26
greatest open opening cery I've ever seen it was phenomenal using the whole city as um as part of the show but I was
00:37:33
thinking on the boat yeah was it was it a bit [ __ ] um oh I loved it but I don't know
00:37:41
if that was just like my my mindset that I talked about earlier that but yeah it
00:37:45
was sick um it was like a just like a boat tour down the middle of Paris of like all of the Epic land landmarks that
00:37:54
you know you wouldn't see otherwise and there was pretty good crowd it was ping
00:37:58
down and it was kind of cold on the boat eventually cuz we had like we had like just these shitty little ponchos like
00:38:06
just you know those plastic youu to festival or something and like so all we had was those and then we took them off
00:38:11
when like the camera was supposed to come on but I think that was a bit we got a bit early so um we were just like
00:38:19
getting absolutely saturated but it was really fun and um not heaps of our team went um so it was like kind of a smaller
00:38:26
team we had a lot of support stuff that went I think they kind of were like guys yeah um but it was epic and I mean
00:38:34
we didn't see heaps of the presentation you know all the acts and that kind of
00:38:39
stuff cuz I think it was kind of made for TV I think some people who paid like thousands of Euros to sit on the side of
00:38:45
the river would have been pretty disappointed cuz it's not made for yeah that's that's what that's what I mean
00:38:50
it's like at least you've got um seats you know near the steps where Lady Gaga
00:38:54
was singing you're not going to see that at all exactly yeah but on TV but it itless we just
00:39:04
justs um all the different landmarks and yeah that was that was epic and yeah I enjoyed it yeah cu the the kaying area
00:39:13
was quite a way out of the the Olympic Village right yeah so were you staying in an Airbnb or uh I stayed in the
00:39:19
village oh the village oh okay how long was the commute uh oh it depended depended on the if the bus got
00:39:27
lost or not oh God yeah so um on a good run so there was like um Olympic Lanes on the motorway so one whole Lane was
00:39:37
just for like Olympic Transport oh that's like a T2 Lane but for exactly yeah so if they they had like it's real
00:39:46
dumb cuz they had like a um like their own app a transport app which prioritized the Olympic Lanes which
00:39:52
makes sense right but then the app was real buggy and all the bus drivers as volunteers from not from Paris so no one
00:40:00
knows where they're going and so if that bugged out and like just quit or something they would just whip up like
00:40:06
Google Maps or Wes or whatever they do and that would take us on like a crazy route cuz it was trying to avoid the
00:40:12
traffic even though we didn't go through the traffic cuz we had our own lane so
00:40:17
like for the first few days it was just like it took us so long sometimes like over an hour and a half to get there cuz
00:40:24
like the bus drivers were just driving like randomly I've got a screenshot on
00:40:28
my phone and it's like um of Google Maps and you know how it shows like the little dot where you are and we're like
00:40:33
on the complete wrong side of Paris and then finally someone went like one of the coaches or whatever went up to the
00:40:38
bus driver like where you going he's like oh I don't know like the the app
00:40:42
didn't stopped working and he was just driving like randomly just like oh my
00:40:47
God trying to find his way by the nose so um yeah but on a good day it was like less than an hour 45 minutes um but I
00:40:56
like they asked us quite a long time ago like a quite a long time before the games like a year or two if we wanted to
00:41:03
stay in the village or at a separate place or whatever and I was like well I'm not even qualified yet and also like
00:41:11
I don't know like Village I guess and we got you know there was other other times
00:41:17
where we could have probably changed things but um I really wanted to stay in the village
00:41:22
cuz I you know might never get to go to the Olympics again it just depends on a lot of different things so yeah I feel
00:41:30
you'd miss out the whole Olympic experience if you didn't stay there for
00:41:33
sure and um you know I'd spoken to some other coaches and athletes who' you know
00:41:37
been there and done that and they were like to be honest that's like pretty normal travel time and um luc's Old
00:41:44
Coach Campbell who now actually coaches Joe Clark who was the the guy who was second in K cross he um he was like well
00:41:51
yeah you know like in Rio it was about the same and and we just made good time of it watched our did our video you on
00:41:57
the bus and you know had lots of food to make sure you recover properly and that
00:42:02
kind of stuff and like we managed it and it was all good and um yeah I actually am really really happy we stayed in the
00:42:08
village um cuz yeah you got to we got to experience being part of um the whole New Zealand team which was awesome and
00:42:18
um and it was crazy I cannot imagine anything more badass than walking around the Olympic Village with a gold medal
00:42:26
around your neck yeah I think having having some of the world's you know most elite athletes
00:42:32
congratulating you yeah yeah yeah I I don't know if I ever walked around the
00:42:37
village with it around my neck oh why not yeah I don't know is it not the done
00:42:42
thing um I don't think I really saw it no um but it was like definitely there
00:42:48
was definitely people that I knew that were congratulating me around the village and stuff but I think it would
00:42:52
be more badass to walk around like just town like that cuz like the Olympic Village like people see you know they're
00:43:00
all athletes or coaches and like they see Olympic Champions all the time but like if you just walk down like the mall
00:43:07
with your Olympic midal on people would be like what the [ __ ] point point so but
00:43:12
yeah it was um it was a really really cool environment like just a whole suburb of massive new apartment
00:43:20
buildings with like 10 to 30,000 people living there all eating at the food Hall
00:43:26
like it was was crazy did and the cad wood beards what were they like a [ __ ] yeah oh like the cwood part of it is
00:43:34
fine cuz it's just the base so like a beard base is hard anyway and like it's
00:43:39
it's not going to collapse it's pretty strong I don't know I feel like David Le
00:43:42
here was was sleeping on it and a unit yeah um so like 77 kilos of me is going to be fine um so the but the mattress
00:43:54
was terrible mattress is super thin it's like I don't know 15 cm 10 cm thick and
00:43:59
it's like it's like recycled plastic it was just real hard so the first few
00:44:04
nights I had a pretty dusty sleeps and then um we actually teed up one of the support stuff when and got uh mattress
00:44:11
topper for me and then after that was meant oh sweet and did you did you um fan girl over anyone in the Olympic
00:44:17
Village um who did you see anyone of note uh I saw Andy Murray oh yeah um but I think all the big dogs go and they
00:44:26
stay at like hotels be so hard being a yeah yeah I think they pop in for like you know a day or something or just go
00:44:33
for dinner at some time but yeah it would be hard like I feel like you just get so many people wanting you autograph
00:44:40
or a photo or whatever that you couldn't actually prepare your event properly so
00:44:44
yeah I think like I really wanted to see like LeBron James or stiff Curry or something but they were all just in a
00:44:49
hotel and um I'm real into Road cycling not doing it but watching it um and so
00:44:55
there's a few of the Belgian Road and that kind of thing that I saw around the
00:44:59
village and that was quite cool but I'm not I'm not really the one that would be
00:45:03
like run up to someone and want a photo so um yeah you're not Michaela blide
00:45:08
with shell and Fraser price no I wasn't that into it but um yeah so I was just
00:45:15
like oh it's you know W vanard or or who so um yeah not not huge Fang girl and
00:45:22
any um any New Zealand new zealanders that you sort of um bonded with or became good friends with um yeah few
00:45:28
actually so um actually good mates with uh Lawrence py so he's our one of our
00:45:34
road cyclist um so yeah got got mates with him and he actually came out to the the kite cross um for a couple days here
00:45:42
to had to shoot off to another another race before the finals but um he was loving it man so there's a bit of that
00:45:49
and then um like yeah everyone was was super friendly and you know the hockey boys the roads uh the rock climbers they
00:45:57
were awesome they were like um I think one of their sort of goals cuz it's like
00:46:02
they're a small sport right and they probably don't get like us like too much
00:46:07
interaction with with other New Zealand Sports and I think one of their things was that they were deliberately wanting
00:46:13
to like interact and and hang out with other people so they were always always around for a for a coffee or or a
00:46:20
hangout down in our team room and and watch different sports so they were really cool yeah I mean everyone in the
00:46:25
New Zealand team was just super friendly and um like all there for the same reason but also all there to enjoy the
00:46:32
whole atmosphere so yeah okay so um yeah man what an experience it's so bloody
00:46:39
cool it's incredible my like camera roll from July and August is just nuts on my
00:46:44
phone I just photos on there that I just would never have ever imagined that I'd
00:46:48
have that's sick I I just I never get sick of um doing these podcasts with um
00:46:54
Olympians especially yeah I'm obsessed with the olymp ESP people there and a
00:46:58
medal like it's just nuts so okay so you win you win the race um what happens
00:47:05
drug testing and so you can't so you had heaps of family there right family and
00:47:09
friends and your your girlfriend got t-shirts printed up like 28 t-shirts what do the t-shirts say yeah um oh they
00:47:15
just had um they had like different photos of me on it kind of one of those ones and then um just like my my last
00:47:23
name on the on the top and um it was funny cuz like they were black and then like the first day that everyone wore
00:47:30
them was like 30 something 37° or something and they all in the stands just like as cooking I was like sorry
00:47:37
guys should have made them white but too bad um who who were the who were the lucky 28 uh jeez I don't know even know
00:47:46
if iing name like just family friends or friends of yours or oh all sorts yeah so
00:47:51
like um Mom and Dad were there and my sister and her partner or her fiance um um and then Courtney obviously my
00:47:59
girlfriend and then her parents were there um couple of my friends there was like some came for the slum and not the
00:48:07
cross and then some just the cross and not slum um and then yeah like I had a good amount of friends that came and um
00:48:15
my one of my physios um Haley she's lives in Aussie now but she came over for um fish Amy Fisher good friends with
00:48:24
her so she was there it was actually really cuz she snuck into the she was obviously Flatwater king um and their
00:48:33
venues on the like the lake that our course comes off of so we're kind of joined um and so she like snuck into the
00:48:41
athletes area which only like the accredited people could get into and so she was there like when I finished in
00:48:49
the final and she was like right there there's a sick photo of her I think I'm
00:48:52
like Lucas hugging me and then fishes behind me just like balling her eyes out it's so cool so she had one on um yeah
00:49:00
yeah and then like friends who have like family friends who got me into the sport
00:49:07
like Mary and gardy and then pep and Ian who like were in up in ockland but they
00:49:13
like Ian took me on like some of my first trips away like We went on a junior tour to Aussie like a development
00:49:20
score tour kind of thing I was probably like 15 or maybe even 14 um and like they' just been been like huge
00:49:27
supporters of the sport and and of me so yeah like they're all there and um but
00:49:32
yeah straight after the race is pretty hectic um we had doping control but it was like finish they were like you get
00:49:40
one interview and it was just with like the Olympic broadcast I guess and then straight to like this kind of room in a
00:49:49
tent like a tent that had our uniform in it so before the race we got to get all
00:49:55
our uniform ready to go and I just gave it to Lucas coach who was like team leader and like he sorted it out and
00:50:04
then yeah it go I goes somewhere I guess and when I got into that tent it was like there a little box with my uniform
00:50:11
tracksuit all there so like the three of us got you know you get changed and then
00:50:16
um few minutes later straight on the podium and then I we got to go across the river across the coast and like meet
00:50:26
up with like friends and family and stuff for like a couple minutes which was epic um so cool to see all them over
00:50:33
there and then back again did an interview with Ms um and a few others which was awesome
00:50:41
and then yeah they just whipped us off to like a big press conference and then straight into doping control which is
00:50:48
yeah kind of the first time you get to breathe a little bit and be like holy [ __ ] what just happened what just
00:50:55
happened I like crazy like I have a photo of me and um Noami Fox so she's good friend from from Aussie um and she
00:51:04
won the kite cross the woman's final One race before mine or two races before mine I can't remember it was hers
00:51:12
then the men's like B final then me but um I heard on the speaker that she won
00:51:18
or she was winning when I was waiting for my race and she won and then um I got a photo with her and dop and like
00:51:25
while we were just waiting and doping control for the all the documents and stuff and we were just like holy [ __ ]
00:51:32
this is crazy and we both had had gold medal so yeah it was um it was epic and then I had heaps out the media and
00:51:39
finally got I got back to the Village at like 10:00 at night um and the team came
00:51:44
out um and did a big hucker for me to welcome me back in which was pretty powerful oh my God yeah were you
00:51:51
emotional yeah yeah yeah uh pretty emotional but yeah like just and kind of like an awe and just
00:52:00
like wow this is amazing whole whole experience yeah oh it's incredible and then and then you did you party with the
00:52:07
Irish no yeah oh yeah we went you at the Irish that yeah that was uh couple nights later so that night cuz I got
00:52:16
didn't get back to the Village till 10 then I had a shower and all that stuff
00:52:20
cuz I couldn't shower after my race because it was just straight to the podium basically so I was like man I
00:52:25
probably smell like terrible and then um uh so sh and stuff finally got into like
00:52:32
Enid house just after 11:30 maybe to meet up with friends and family and like all the guys that were at the course
00:52:39
supporting me all went there and I was meeting up with them and then um we went to like just a chill bar and then they
00:52:46
closed by the we only had a couple beers and they closed so the next night was um
00:52:53
I don't know if it was the next night or the night after that was real big but we
00:52:57
we like met all met up all the kayakers met up and so like all all of us all the
00:53:01
Mists everyone was who was still in Paris all met up and we went to a bar like which is called Wall Street and
00:53:07
like all the prices of the drinks changed like um Stock Exchange yeah it was sick and then um so we're all there
00:53:15
and like the bartenders were so suck that we were there and like I was behind the bar like pouring people drinks like
00:53:23
taking orders making shots for people it's so funny um I got a video of them like pouring um
00:53:29
like pouring a shot into my mouth like it's hilarious um and that's a night and
00:53:34
then after that we went to the Irish house and so kiwi house was at the Marriot on the Sham so it's like kind of
00:53:41
a place you could go hang out watch the sport have a couple beers but not like fully send it the Irish house was just
00:53:49
obviously at an Irish bar and why not cuz why not and so uh my mate no who Irish um paddles for Ireland he um he
00:54:00
like teed up that we'd all get in there and so like we all had our mles on and
00:54:05
we just like go into this bar um and then we just yeah that was we sent it I think we got home at 7:30 in the morning
00:54:12
back to incredible that was yeah it was it was awesome night it was good fun yeah your um your reference um mes
00:54:20
before Andrew Mulligan and your the the speech that you made just after winning and um yeah I feel like you you you
00:54:26
didn't uh forget to thank anyone like it was a really good speech and you you
00:54:29
mentioned um you gave a shout out to um sge yeah who's your coach who died of um
00:54:34
pancreatic cancer in 2022 um yeah let's talk about him yeah who's I probably did
00:54:40
forget to mention people I can't remember what I said but there's 28 people in t-shirts you can't get
00:54:46
everyone 28 people that made it there there's a heck of a lot that didn't make
00:54:49
it yeah true um yeah I S like so alen alen Hoffman as full name but obviously s he was um he was in the
00:55:00
military um pretty high up in the military um but just a all around Legion pretty much so he was basically when I
00:55:09
was growing up in Alex him and his family his wife and two kids were based in wer um so they kind of were like pretty
00:55:19
integral in the whole King scene around central tago running races and that kind
00:55:25
of stuff and like he was just like someone who would do anything just to see someone like happy and and like
00:55:36
succeed but his idea of success wasn't like winning or anything it was just like enjoying kaying basically um so
00:55:44
yeah I mean he was just an absolute Legend um supported me basically since I started he was actually so when I first
00:55:53
started I went to uh um like a novice slum race when I was about nine with some other friends and
00:56:02
like our family friends were kind of in the scene well they were they were basically the scene and
00:56:08
um running it and so yeah sge was running that race and so like and then I I won this little novice stlm race and
00:56:16
um you know he gave me a chocolate fish and stuff and he was at the end of the price giving he was selling a uh an old
00:56:23
syum boat for 200 bucks or something with pedal and dead was kind of like oh like you
00:56:29
know I saw you enjoy it like if you really want to do it Go and ask sge if you can you can buy this boat off and
00:56:36
whatever and yeah so we did that and then we went up to W that week and picked up this boat and yeah just loved
00:56:44
it ever since but he um yeah when he got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer he basically was like
00:56:54
6 to n months and he was like there was I don't I don't know the date but
00:57:00
um he he had so and by that time him and his um wife kirst had moved over to wacka white in um on the coast just
00:57:12
about north of denen and um and he had this so there's a white water course in
00:57:18
Teo and that was kind of like his who always said is like his mistress you know like he was he was just there all
00:57:26
the time just working on this course like literally like moving rocks concreting on the Digger all sorts of
00:57:33
stuff and just trying to make this course and this venue um better for everyone to enjoy and like he was like
00:57:41
all through his chemo everything he was out there all the time in the freezing cold just working so hard and um yeah it
00:57:53
was like yeah just inspirational like um if it's kind of like it's just one of those people that
00:58:04
kind of connects with you and goes like and just makes you realize like what actually matters in life and it's not
00:58:11
like for him it wasn't like getting up of cash it wasn't all this stuff it was
00:58:16
just enjoying peddling and yeah helping the community and yeah hanging out with his family and he's
00:58:25
just Legion it's like super hard to describe cuz yeah yeah jeez I'm I'm
00:58:30
getting emotional just like stop myself crying every time why why do you yeah why otherwise I won't be able to say
00:58:39
anything yeah I think that's the um that's the nicest thing you can do though way like I mean he's obviously
00:58:44
gone and you whether you believe in an afterlife or not like the keep acknowledging him and talking about him
00:58:49
in such a nice way um yeah I can't imagine what that means to the family you know and people that know him that
00:58:56
you're keeping that memory alive yeah oh he's he's bloody good man so it was cool
00:59:00
like I actually when I flew back in sorry um when I came back in straight after the games uh his son Nick is a
00:59:08
pilot for New Zealand and he was actually up in Oakland on like he was on standby and had to fly to Oakland so had
00:59:15
the whole day and so um Len my mate came picked me up and Nick actually met us at
00:59:22
the airport and it was like it was so cool to see him there and then yeah we went for a beer and a burger at North
00:59:30
coat T and yeah it was a cool man yeah yeah after his diagnosis how long did he how long did he did he last sounds from
00:59:39
what you describ long time yeah um [ __ ] he must been in pain too yeah oh unimaginable
00:59:46
um [ __ ] when was it I think it was 2015 maybe and then um he passed a couple years ago can you remember your like
00:59:56
your final conversation with him or anything was it anything poyant or special or
01:00:02
uh no nah not not really I think it was probably just some exchange some messages while I was overseas um yeah
01:00:13
cuz he was always watching yeah he was he was following whatever you were doing yeah bro like he
01:00:19
was the first one to message me I think first one to message me and Dad always said like it was the first one to
01:00:26
message dead straight after race that was so cool like yeah it was just like 4 a.m. up watching like yeah did he um did
01:00:39
did he did he think this was possible like did he have this belief in you what would he make of all this yeah I reckon
01:00:46
he did I reckon he did yeah yeah I reckon he did man some of his stories are so good like from the was messaging
01:00:56
a mate yesterday and he was like I hope you tell some stories it's like sorry
01:01:01
okay like what you got cuz he so like cuz obviously it's been a lot of time in
01:01:06
the Army he was a tank commander like there was all sorts of stuff like just stuff in the army that he would do and
01:01:13
you know us little kids we would just be like an awe of all these stories that he
01:01:17
was talking about and you know driving tanks around around around the desert road and um shooting at horses and all
01:01:26
sorts of stuff the kids horses yeah I don't know how much I can say on the podcast but know just
01:01:33
that's not familiar they're not like um dresses or they're wild they're very
01:01:38
dangerous yeah and so you know all this sort of stuff and I I remember in um we had this little um course this little
01:01:46
river just outside um denen and and uh W pory and you know like we'd have I think
01:01:54
we had uh Secondary School Champs there or something and we were we were preparing for it and cutting all these
01:02:00
trees down and so we had this big bombfire and he was and it wasn't lit and he was like watch this kids and he
01:02:06
just like got the gasoline you know got the got the pedrol can and just made a trail and then dous this whole thing and
01:02:13
he was like step back and he he didn't hold back on the profanities either like
01:02:17
every every sentence was swearing um and so like you know all these you know we what are we like 12 13 and just Lear how
01:02:26
to swear from him pretty much and he just lights it up and just this whole bombfire and so like he just had he just
01:02:34
he just got [ __ ] done and um he hated like um bureaucracy and barriers to people being in the sport um and yeah I
01:02:47
I remember him in the water in Yi up to basically his almost his neck with a chainsaw cutting trees so we could run a
01:02:58
race that went further down the river so there was trees across the river and he
01:03:01
was cutting these trees with his chainsaw and like up to his neck and water and and then cutting them down
01:03:06
into the water with the chainsaw and just like there just nothing would stop him um but he sounds so loose oh he's
01:03:14
real loose but just the the kindest guy um and so yeah I mean there's plenty of
01:03:22
Plenty Of War or Not War Stories but yeah military stories that he would tell us that our K would just be like holy so
01:03:30
he would have definitely been t-shir 29 yeah yeah yeah for sure for sure and um d d and Wendy your parent yeah yeah um
01:03:40
[ __ ] they they sound they sound incredible yeah they retired now y yeah so they were um they're in the
01:03:46
hospitality game yeah what do they have like a was it like a like a wedding venue uh a catering business what was it
01:03:52
yeah yeah so uh basically I think not long after um after they they had kids um they decided to kind of build this Cafe
01:04:06
and wedding business actually I think the idea might have come from one of my best friends um who I grew up with his
01:04:13
parents got married at their house and and then they were kind of like oh we could you know maybe turn this into a
01:04:18
business so yeah they had a a cafe and and function Center and had I don't know
01:04:24
over 5 or 600 weddings um throughout their time so they were there for 34 years um but kind of not all that time
01:04:32
they were running it was an orchard at the start um and yeah they just like I'm
01:04:38
so lucky to have them it's it's like they were just so so supportive of me
01:04:45
and um how much sacrifice they get they gave and honestly they're like the hardest working people I'd ever imagin I
01:04:53
mean anyone that who's in the hospitality business that it's just you just got to work hard and long hours and
01:05:00
um and being like at home was even more so you know cuz they couldn't go home after work
01:05:09
they were still there so um everything was just constantly working and um but yeah they
01:05:16
just like they always said that my kaying was their hobby you know like supporting me was their hobby cuz that's
01:05:26
I guess that's what it takes at you know sort of Grassroots sport level like um
01:05:34
people have to make a lot of sacrifices and um without my parents I definitely wouldn't
01:05:40
still be paddling because um it's pretty expensive to to go and go paddling even
01:05:45
around New Zealand and then let alone travel to Europe to go and race internationally it's yeah it's big big
01:05:52
cost yeah cuz it's it's not one of those like if you were the um the equivalent
01:05:55
level in say rugby or Cricket you know you'd be getting a you'd be getting a
01:05:59
good a good a good pay packet um but it's not a big money sport so um I've
01:06:04
heard they were working like 100 hour weeks yeah and um basically pumping anything they made into into advancing
01:06:09
your career pretty much yeah and like like you say that it wasn't like it's
01:06:15
not like I guess uh Formula 1 or something where if you you know you pump up your son or daughter's career then
01:06:23
eventually there's going to be a Payday um potentially there was no potential
01:06:28
Payday for this it was just you're you're passionate about this and you love it and you're happy and we just
01:06:35
want to see you do that so we'll support you and like yeah it's there was no
01:06:42
never any Kickback financially that was on the horizon it was just uh you just like it so we we'll help you do it and
01:06:50
you know we had our house was kind of funny it had like a um like a glass ceiling on one of the um
01:06:59
there was like a double Lounge kind of thing it was weird and it was all cracked and leaking and stuff so every
01:07:05
time it rain luckily we live in Alexandre where it's not much rain but every time it did rain it would just
01:07:11
pour through the roof so we had to put buckets and stuff out and Mom would always say I'd rather spend the money on
01:07:17
on sending you to Europe or sending you on a training camp or helping you do whatever then fix the fix the roof so
01:07:25
yeah just stuff like that that parents do that um yeah makes a big difference so I mean it was it was pretty cool to
01:07:34
to see or to have them in Paris and then also yeah like see the interviews with them and and be able to like have them
01:07:44
there with me while through all that cuz I wouldn't have been there without them so yeah pretty cool that story
01:07:52
about the glass ceiling that's you feel guilty [Laughter] I for sure there was like different
01:08:00
periods periods where I was like you know like you feel this better work yeah or yeah I mean but at the same time it
01:08:07
was like I know that they're working bloody hard for me so if I'm not working bloody hard to get
01:08:15
better at something that they're allowing me to do then what's you know like who am I kind of thing um so yeah
01:08:23
they were well they are they just epic appearance man like and seeing them like chilling retired is just so special like
01:08:33
going down south and like they sold up the business a couple years ago now and um retired and I got like some decent
01:08:42
results in 2021 so got a little bit of funding so like things weren't I didn't have to
01:08:48
pay we didn't have to pay as much money basically still losing money but um keeping your headit above so it meant
01:08:56
that they didn't have to work as hard basically which was pretty special and
01:09:00
and then seeing them retire and um and just like in their they renovated a house um that looks kind of up over the
01:09:08
river and up to the Leaning rock down in in Alex and like just going down there and and hanging out with them and and
01:09:15
they don't have to wake up at 6:00 in the morning and start working at 7 in the in the cafe for a wedding that's
01:09:22
that night or whatever is pretty cool and just like you you know get up late and they have a 9:30 coffee looking out
01:09:29
over the river it's like man I'm so happy for you guys that you can do this
01:09:34
now so yeah cool I mate I can I can hear the um like the just the the love and the respect um and your voice when you
01:09:42
when you when you talk about it yeah um and I think for for their perspective um
01:09:47
like if they have a watch or or here this or any other interview you've done
01:09:51
for that matter um yeah I mean they'll know how grateful you are yeah yeah which I think is cool are you any other
01:09:56
siblings uh yeah I've got an older sister right so she was living in the house with the little yeah yeah spending
01:10:02
all his money on fin well I did hear you Dad in another interview um maybe I read
01:10:07
it somewhere saying um you like always a really disciplined trainer but terribly
01:10:11
Missy yeah yeah it still is really yeah like I'm just I run a floor drob off I
01:10:18
don't know why I just always been like that my parents aren't really like that
01:10:23
either I don't know where I got it from but um yeah messy room um I was a bit of a
01:10:29
procrastinator when I was a kid as well so there was definitely a few times where Dad would be like come on you've
01:10:36
like you know before I got my license and stuff come on it's you to come pedling time or whatever and I'd be just
01:10:43
pussing around doing something like I don't know what I was doing but and he'd
01:10:48
be like tie my boat on the roof get all my gear ready get it in the car and then
01:10:52
like Mom would be like come on like all you got to do is get in the car and and then Dad would take me and I'd be happy
01:10:58
once I got there but just for some reason mucking around procrastinating and he used to get yeah he used to get
01:11:04
frustrated cuz there's nothing that annoys him more that than being late and
01:11:09
I think I got that from mom cuz she she's always late and D's always pissed
01:11:15
off yeah so oh man it's um but were you were you were you quite self-driven though I mean it's like it's
01:11:22
understandable if you're especially in your teenage years I guess that you have
01:11:24
moments where you can't be [ __ ] or whatever but for the most part you were
01:11:29
that sort of single-minded focus yeah yeah pretty much like yeah I think probably as well from a small
01:11:36
sport from a small town and we didn't have like we had a club um our club's
01:11:42
bloody awesome but um often we didn't have any coaching you know it wasn't
01:11:48
like now where it's like all right we've got these sessions and the coach is
01:11:53
there and you turn up up and you know like you work hard together it sort of thing it was a lot of it was just like
01:12:00
here's your your plan which either I've made myself or you know I've talked to
01:12:05
someone and a local Coach or someone who sort of knows what they're talking about
01:12:09
to then you know help me figure out what I need to do and so yeah most of it was
01:12:16
just by itself and um and especially through the winter there was like the kind of numbers that um you'd be
01:12:24
paddling with in the summer really thin down when you're when you're ping
01:12:27
in central Taro in the winter I can imagine yeah yeah so I think I was always self-driven I just always loved
01:12:35
it I think um I don't know I think it didn't it didn't come until maybe around the Rio Olympics time
01:12:44
like 2016 2015 2016 where I was kind of like oh that like that dream that I had as a kid of going to the Olympics was
01:12:52
actually kind of more tangible so you like 2021 at the yeah so I went to I went to atig UNI for
01:12:57
2 years like 20134 um which was like pretty cool experience but also I was trying to
01:13:05
train I was kind of like half in the training half being a student and it kind of got to the point where I was
01:13:12
like right and like do I want to be good at canoing at kaying or just finish my studies and kind of like do go into a
01:13:23
normal job and do that kind of stuff uh and I decided yeah I I wanted to be good
01:13:27
at peddling so I took a year off um and actually moved up uh lived in um toonga for the summer and then went to Europe
01:13:36
and did my like full first full season on the um World Cup kind of tour um so it's sort of that point where I was like
01:13:44
right training properly deciding to you really kind of give it something um before that it was obviously yeah it was
01:13:54
I was serious at school um and serious when I went to UNI with training but it was kind of like I was compromising a
01:14:00
lot yeah um so after that yeah I started not not compromising so much but yeah I
01:14:05
think yeah I was always self-driven but also like the community we had and Alex and and Central was just awesome and um
01:14:14
yeah everyone was just it's just like a big family and everyone wants to support
01:14:18
and um and and go enjoy things together so you was so much greater today yeah yeah yeah have to cuz
01:14:27
like so many so many people have been a part of creating well like helping me grow up and be who I am and going to the
01:14:40
games and you know representing New Zealand and and getting that that gold medal that but a lot of the time it
01:14:46
wasn't for that like no one's kind of like especially in Alex like no one's
01:14:53
there supporting this kid because he might be a child prodigy and he could go and win the Olympics one day it's just
01:15:01
like oh you like pedling oh come with us you know like we'll we'll put you up
01:15:06
we'll bring you to the Skippers Canyon or whatever for the weekend and oh yeah
01:15:12
yeah come in our car do whatever it's just yeah it's all part of it it's just
01:15:17
like why people do the sport so yeah all those people like yeah couldn't have
01:15:24
done it without them for sure a such a cool um aspect of like Regional or provinal New Zealand just that sort of
01:15:30
um real Community energy and it's like sort of like what you were talking about
01:15:33
with um sge before it's um yeah it was just about having fun and getting amongst it so you you were um so your
01:15:41
dad used to do Coast to Coast events and stuff God knows how he F fit in the training for that honestly I have no
01:15:47
idea um juggling young kids are weding business and trying to train for the coast to coast like a multiport event
01:15:56
cuz you got to juggle you know multiple disciplines as well um yeah I have no idea but yeah he did I don't know a few
01:16:04
Coast to coasts um few few of the one day ones as well so I went and support crew with them when I was a little
01:16:11
little Grom standing on the side of the river like I think his actual saw crew said oh here's his kayak you know just
01:16:18
stand by his kak and when he comes he'll W he'll be able to find that cuz he'll
01:16:21
see you and I just I don't know how I out was just standing by his kite just
01:16:26
waiting for him to to turn up so yeah did he go right um if he was doing the longest day he must have been okay
01:16:35
that's no joke yeah yeah he was he was pretty good um you know like he he didn't win or anything but um yeah he
01:16:42
was a pretty I think he was a pretty good athlete when he was younger he he's
01:16:45
he grew up on on the North Shore actually in Oakland and he was really into his Athletics he was a runner so um
01:16:52
so you why did you so you you know you've got this um this Dad who's a great role model and you see him doing
01:16:59
um you know training for the coast to coast why why did you gra gravitate towards the kayak and not like cycling
01:17:04
or say running um well I don't really know I think you hate running don't you not a
01:17:12
fan go goats pass J I bet you my coach told you that so um no so we always had like kayaks around and bikes as well but
01:17:24
um I think I don't know if that's what Dad liked more but we I remember when I
01:17:31
was real real young going up to Lake dunon and um you know they'd put me in the kayak and tie a piece of string to
01:17:37
it and then I'd just like poted my way out and pull me back in back reel me back in yes um so I suppose like that
01:17:44
was always there um and then I think it was like Mary and gardy um gy Rainer um I think they were like family friends of
01:17:53
ours and and that's where the kaying really started I think um I was kind of
01:17:59
into all the sports you know just doing all sorts of random stuff at at when I was younger at primary school and then
01:18:06
yeah just went along with a group of friends and Mary and Gordy kind of brought us along to that novice salum
01:18:12
and that was the the kaying thing and um I don't know I I remember saving up my
01:18:18
pocket money for a while to buy a road bike um because I I was like I really want to do Road cycling and then
01:18:25
I bought it finally and then rode it a couple times with Dad around the roads and then I think I just got real scared
01:18:31
of all the cars on the roads so and then basically never just like threw that one
01:18:35
in but a lot of my good friends were really really good at Road cycling um down in Alex and yeah don't know just
01:18:42
kaying was just what what grabbed me and I just loved it so yeah how much of it is natural Talent versus hard work um
01:18:52
there must be some sort of natural ability there do you think yeah I don't know it's funny because you said like
01:18:57
about Dad but like Mom is the most um like she's not competitive at all like not one bit she does not care at
01:19:08
all so it's funny that I got into competitive sport um but yeah I don't know I guess the natural Talent is
01:19:17
probably just from being like around kayaks and water and likeu starting at a young age and
01:19:26
getting exposed to different environments and different rivers and um that kind of stuff I don't like I don't
01:19:32
really know if it's natural or just you know it's just a product of who who's
01:19:38
been looking after you and who's been teaching you and um where you've been
01:19:42
and um I think you developed those skills at a really young age and I think I was pretty lucky to start doing stuff
01:19:50
when I was like nine or 10 um and start going and um getting taken up into Skippers Canyon or down the Roaring M or
01:20:00
that kind of stuff and um yeah I think that's probably the natural talent but
01:20:03
then the hard work comes in definitely cuz you know that can only take you to to a certain level and um yeah like once
01:20:12
you get get want to get above that and get in with the best in the world then you've got to be you got to be working
01:20:19
hard yet no one no one has ever stood on the top of the Olympic Podium with the gold medal around the neck just on
01:20:25
natural Talent it's so by the way I I never realized um roaring Mig was like a
01:20:30
it's my favorite red wine yeah yeah well that's a fun fact yeah it's a section um
01:20:36
on the Kara River um on the in the yeah in The Gorge between um Queens down and crom so roaring mags a creek um and a a
01:20:45
power station and yeah we kak that section below the power station you and me are very different so you think of it
01:20:51
as a place to kak I think it as a fine drop it is a good it is a good rewind fantastic um oh have you been back to
01:20:59
your your schools since you won the gold medal yeah yeah I did well yeah so when
01:21:03
I came back straight after the games I was in Oakland a little bit and then I shot down to to Alex for a few days and
01:21:09
yeah went into my old Primary School Alex primary um and my high school dunon High and um and then a few other primary
01:21:17
schools around the area and like that was super super special like just being I would have be an inspiration for some
01:21:25
of those kids was pretty cool cuz um also Dunston High by the way uh School motto is um seek wisdom in I mean what
01:21:34
the what the hell yeah yeah it's pretty cool like U and actually we got like a
01:21:40
an old uh friends Snapchat Group which we don't really use because I sort of
01:21:45
grown out of Snapchats but um but it was funny when I was in doping control straight after the race I just like took
01:21:52
a photo of me with my middle and sent it to that group and said like seek wisdom
01:21:57
is gold and then the boys were just so were just fizzing uh they thought it was so cool and um it's funny that the the
01:22:05
motto is s wisdom has got I mean it's a a big gold mining area back I was what
01:22:10
what it means is that what it is is it a not to the the gold mining history yeah
01:22:14
so all of like basically all of Alexandra um in central tiger was pretty much built on on the back of gold mining
01:22:20
um back in the day so that's a nod to that yeah man that's so cool who who did
01:22:26
who did you have when you were growing up like who who did you look up to um in terms of um like famous people or Sports
01:22:32
people um I think actually Conley asked me this the other day because uh I think
01:22:37
mine was Hamish Carter oh yeah yeah yeah so jez where where did we win gold and silver was that um Sydney 2000 no uh I
01:22:47
think a he he won a gold medal beon dock he won a silver I think I was yeah I would have been like nine um so probably
01:22:55
at that age where I was kind of like starting into sport sort of thing and yeah I remember that I remember watching
01:23:01
it it was pretty epic so yeah kind of it's hard to um imagine or know the impact it has on those kids yeah you
01:23:08
know I don't know I'm from I'm from palas North which is a it's a it's a
01:23:12
city but it's a it's a small City and um you know you you I suppose you you put
01:23:17
limitations on what you think you can do when you're from a smaller place definitely um so for these kids to see
01:23:22
you there with a gold medal and you know it's your region yeah um it probably
01:23:26
shows that there are no limits in a way yeah it's yeah it's definitely pretty
01:23:30
cool and like I remember um Barbara Kendall coming to our I think she came to our primary school and like still
01:23:38
remembering that now was quite cool and I saw her in Paris and we had a yarn and
01:23:42
I was like you you came to my primary school like you were part of the inspiration kind of to to do Sport and
01:23:50
now I like have the privilege to be able to do that and especially in my region it's pretty special cuz yeah I think um
01:24:02
you know the kids there they probably don't know it but they they are growing
01:24:07
up in a pretty cool area of New Zealand and um there's a lot of opportunities um
01:24:14
down there that to live in that place is is pretty special and um yeah to be able
01:24:19
to see that someone from there can actually go um to the highest level and and Achieve and Nicole Shields cyclist
01:24:27
from Clyde same same high school as me um she won a silver in in Paris as well and like having two from the same school
01:24:36
from that that tiny little area is U is pretty cool yeah so I think that's honestly that's like the most special
01:24:43
thing is when um people or kids or whatever said you know oh we got up early and watched you it was awesome
01:24:52
like we were supporting you and like that is the coolest thing to be able to see that and then see the inspiration in
01:24:58
their in their eyes you know like um that they just yeah will be inspired to do something um if one person goes and
01:25:07
does Sport or picks up a pedal and goes King then man from that then I'm I'm
01:25:12
pretty happy oh it's so meaningful for sure um oh yeah what about you've
01:25:17
mentioned Courtney a couple of times yeah so who is she where did you guys meet is she in the scene yeah she is
01:25:22
yeah so she's a she's a kak as well so um we met through that yeah yeah she's
01:25:26
good so she races on the uh on the senior team on the World Cups and and World Champs and um just missed out on
01:25:34
obviously she was behind Luca um in the stylum but there was a like a last chance regetta sort of thing for um just
01:25:43
the K cross um so she was going for that but it didn't didn't work out um this
01:25:48
time but yeah she's hopefully going to going to keep plugging away and and try to get to so
01:25:55
well she's got a pretty good Mentor yeah I know if she listens to me no she's awesome she's um yeah she's
01:26:02
from toonga so I think basically when I was kind of at high school or whatever um the two main areas were Central Taro
01:26:12
and and bay plen um for kaying and so yeah she's from kind of that Hub um through there so yeah we met I don't
01:26:21
know a few years after leaving school and yeah oh so you've been together for
01:26:25
ages yeah a while yeah are you engaged no no she keeps getting me the hints but yeah no we'll see um what is that
01:26:36
what does we'll see Ohad we lead busy lives nah she's she's awesome um she was
01:26:43
saying well she was like I was looking for kind of after the games you know she's like I'll be your manager um but
01:26:51
she keeps saying oh my rate's 50% % yeah 50% cut or 45% cut she's said I'll do 40
01:26:59
but there's got to be a ring so yeah she's pretty funny but that's a tough
01:27:04
negotiation she she's a hard ask but um yeah she's cool so I was down at um her
01:27:11
with her at her at her parents house at the mount um last week just just hanging
01:27:16
out so she's working and training as well what's her job uh she does like
01:27:22
marketing social media at signature home to oh cool yeah yeah so she can do that
01:27:28
um overseas which has been really good so she can kind of like keep plugging away and working parttime and while
01:27:35
she's away cuz that's like the hardest thing for us is being able to do like earn money
01:27:42
while you're overseas CU you know it's got to pay for somehow so um she's
01:27:48
worked out with them that she can she can do stuff online which is pretty cool oh yeah that's good yeah big to
01:27:54
Signature Homes that's really bloody lovely yeah that's cool yeah I think you
01:27:58
should yeah we need to acknowledge like workplaces that do that that are accommodating like that what what about
01:28:03
you um financially you get looked after by high performance sport or do you have
01:28:06
some good sponsors or yeah yeah so um obviously on the on the back of um on the back of the games there's a few more
01:28:14
opportunities coming through which is pretty cool but yeah we're kind of in the period at the moment um which
01:28:20
happens at the end of every Olympic cycle where um all the sports kind of set their next four-year plan or um and
01:28:30
to the next games and set all the budgets and and apply for everything through high performance sport um so
01:28:37
we're kind of in that like limbo phase at the moment where all those conversations are happening and um and
01:28:43
things so my coach and I were basically yeah working on that a lot in the last few weeks and then got that all in and
01:28:52
um that kind of having meetings and stuff now so basically yeah high performance sport um will be big
01:28:59
supporter and then yeah there's a few other few other things coming in um I don't know if we can talk about it talk
01:29:08
about it but um yeah I don't know what what are youing we talk the G one yeah the the big G oh
01:29:16
let's talk okay you know by the time this comes out that'll that'll all be
01:29:19
sign um yeah generate uh the Kiwi saver scheme who are sponsors of my podc um they've just um Inked you as a
01:29:27
sponsor yeah yeah um which is so they are awesome they are awesome they are such a great uh company to work with
01:29:32
yeah fantastic so they how did that relationship come about um actually uh one of the king parents um saw their ads
01:29:43
on on TV I guess the um we love a kiwi first um and having to be on like straight after um I won the the gold
01:29:52
medal and yeah they kind of were like oh you know like her her Sports Marketing mind kind of went into overdrive and
01:29:59
then yeah they they just reached out and um yeah started the conversation with with generate and and they've been
01:30:05
really cool and I'm looking forward to to working with them a bit more and um
01:30:10
yeah hopefully bringing out some cool stuff so oh they are great that's such a
01:30:12
good story yeah cool the chance of um like reaching out to them and them going yeah sure why not it's amazing it's
01:30:20
pretty cool and um yeah just from I mean the the the few conversations that we've had so far they're pretty
01:30:26
cool and obviously they've been a big supporter of yours for a while now which
01:30:29
is also epic so they've been instrumental in helping grow the podcast this year it's been amazing and that's
01:30:35
such cool people to work with um oh I forgot to ask about the um the closing ceremony so you're FL you're yourself
01:30:44
and Dame Lisa um flag bearers at the closing ceremony yeah so who asked you to do that is it the shift to Mission
01:30:50
yeah yeah so Shi Mission um [ __ ] ay so he called me um Courtney and I actually were about
01:31:01
to go into the Val Drome to watch um some of the track cycling which was like maybe two or three two days before the
01:31:09
the closing um and yeah so he called me and and yeah basically asked if I'd um
01:31:15
if I'd carry the flag um for for New Zealand and man it was obviously a no-brainer for me um it was a pretty
01:31:23
special moment to be able to um spend a bit of time with with Dame liser and um and share the the flag carrying um
01:31:32
walking out into that the middle of stud to France with I don't know 80 odd thousand people um and there was yeah it
01:31:39
was it was pretty cool and definitely something I'll never forget but um the
01:31:43
closing ceremony was funny it was a bit of a [ __ ] show I think was it in what way oh like we were out there and so we
01:31:49
we like walk out with the flag and then all the flags are kind of like around the St stadium in the middle and then
01:31:55
the teams come out um out the two entrances or whatever you know the tunnels and we were kind of
01:32:03
like okay cool they're going to come in numerical order oh not numerical alphabetical order um you know like the
01:32:09
opening ceremony and so we were sort of waiting and trying to figure out like hold on this order is not like the right
01:32:17
order what's going on here we're just waiting for New Zealand to come out and
01:32:21
then they finally after a while couldn't they just didn't come out and then they
01:32:26
were like okay we need to take your flag now to like continue the ceremony you guys go find your team and we were like
01:32:33
the team's not here and so we just me and Le were just like chilling out like
01:32:38
cool and finally the kiwis came out and I think they'd been like I think I don't
01:32:43
know all the order was just stuffed and they had been like stuck in a traffic jam at the back of the in the tunnel and
01:32:48
it was like 40° inside this tunnel and they'd all come out and they were just
01:32:52
drenched and S like they've been waiting for ages but it was it was pretty cool
01:32:58
um yeah CU this is where they um they do this s of Handover so it's uh signifies
01:33:02
the end of the Paris Olympics and the um the buildup to um La 2028 so they had um
01:33:08
Chili Peppers there yeah so there were we had like been hearing rumors about oh like you know whatever's going to happen
01:33:16
at the closing ceremony and where Snoop Dog was obviously at the games like the whole time yeah rolling around with
01:33:22
Martha Martha Stewart doing all sorts of stuff and we were like surely Snoop Dog's going to perform at the closing
01:33:27
ceremony and we'd heard like that Tom Cruz was going to like parachuting or repell and what she did in the end um
01:33:36
and the Chili's and someone else I think but um they ended up just performing
01:33:43
they were performing in LA and we just watched them on the screen so it was like a bit I was like damn Snoop Dog's
01:33:49
been here the whole time and then he flew back to LA and performed with Dr D in LA on the screen so um but yeah
01:33:57
basically what happened was like they kind of close off the Paris part and then um Tom Cruz like repelled in off
01:34:04
the stadium roof and kind of took the Olympic flag and honed out on his motorbike and then it changed to being
01:34:11
on the TV of him taking the flag to LA and then they performed there so um yeah it was it was kind of funny but I think
01:34:21
for La like man it's going to be the Americans will just do something bigger and better than anyone before
01:34:29
because that's what they do in America well I'm um I'm so much older than you
01:34:33
but one of my um enduring memories as being like 11 years old and um that's when the 84 games were on in LA and um
01:34:40
some dude came in in a jet pack and I was like this is the [ __ ] future um yeah CU me goosebumps just
01:34:47
thinking imagine what it's going to be like in four years incredible and I've
01:34:51
heard you say you're going to be a different Beast quote in LA in years time what do you mean um how can you get
01:34:58
better or how can you build on what you've done yeah well I think the cool thing is I'm definitely not um where I
01:35:07
think I can get to um so there's a lot of things I mean obviously we're talking
01:35:12
about that puzzle again like things are changing um obviously like I've got different views of myself people have
01:35:19
got different views of me now that I've got a a gold medal so that changes quite
01:35:24
a lot so yeah we've obviously going to keep working on that and um yeah I want
01:35:29
to be the best in the world in slum as well as the best in the world in kite cross so yeah I think there's a few
01:35:37
things kind of that we that we can can Target and and figure out but um yeah it's a lot of hard work probably between
01:35:46
definitely between now and LA but I'm looking forward to it and I think just
01:35:51
being able to go pedling every day and uh and work hard and keep trying to figure out the little technical things
01:35:58
that are going to help me improve and and um keep that mindset taken over and work on that I think it's uh yeah it's a
01:36:07
privilege to be able to do it so I'm really looking forward to the next four
01:36:11
years like I'll probably have a little bit more of a break now and um probably
01:36:14
when November rolls around I'll be ripping back into it but yeah I think probably when I said different Beast I I
01:36:21
just meant like yeah mentally everything's going to be different I'm four years older four
01:36:27
years more experienced um I've had a games behind me already so I know a bit
01:36:33
more about how to prepare and and what worked what didn't work and um yeah we
01:36:39
can kind of build on that um cuz yeah experience is you know it's Priceless and um to be able to learn from our last
01:36:49
campaign and and be able to go into the next one with um a different perspective
01:36:54
is is pretty cool and pretty exciting so yeah looking forward to it and what about the um the pressure now not just I
01:37:00
mean you know from a competitive point of view I suppose you've got a Target on
01:37:03
your back now because you're the gold medal guy but also um the public pressure as
01:37:08
well yeah I mean does it does it um like does it does it when you think about it
01:37:13
too much do you find it daunting or um they say pre prees a privilege but yeah also preure can be overwhelming a little
01:37:20
bit yeah um I think think our like I guess it goes two ways like in New Zealand now um people sort of know
01:37:31
our Sport and and what we do and and who I am and what what I do and that kind of
01:37:35
thing so but on a on a world stage our Sports still it's still pretty like small and hidden but um
01:37:44
so I don't know I honestly like haven't really thought too much about it I think
01:37:49
in general like the New Zealand Public and media and everyone is just um it's pretty stoked that they can just
01:37:59
have someone who's who's good at good at a a a sport that I think people have
01:38:04
been enjoying watching um and I suppose it's not like you know like not like the
01:38:10
All Blacks where it's like the national identity kind of rides on it which is
01:38:14
quite good for me cuz um yeah I don't know where that way that would sit me but um yeah I
01:38:21
mean I don't know I haven't thought too much about it but we we'll see it might
01:38:25
be like I say like it's it's always changing the the picture and um might
01:38:31
have to have a good few more sessions with the with the mental skills trainer sports like and uh yeah and and picture
01:38:40
what it's going to be like but I know whatever whatever you're doing um yeah
01:38:43
just don't don't mess with it don't tamper with it it's um it's it's working
01:38:48
yeah but I mean at the same time like you can't just do the same thing and expect it's going to get the same result
01:38:53
so we're always just going to try to to keep building and if we we make a plan
01:38:59
and um think it's going to think it's going to work and and and do that and
01:39:03
for some reason it doesn't work out then you know you've got to be accepting that
01:39:08
that's what you wanted to do and you trusted that plan and um the result will
01:39:12
be what it will be but um man I'm yeah I'm excited I can tell I can tell I I
01:39:19
think part of the reason um I don't know I'm speculating here but I think part of
01:39:23
the reason like New Zealand was so happy for you is um you know cuz you you seemed like genuinely excited and so so
01:39:30
humble as well and so grateful for the community around you that we've um we've
01:39:34
talked about so all these little factors and you know yeah yeah I think as well like kind of I guess not many people
01:39:40
knew about kite cross like a bit a bit about slum from from Luca kind of um being
01:39:47
around but um man K cross is such a good spectator sport and like uh like Mo said
01:39:54
like oh make it the national sport because um people love it there's something kiwi about like a better of a
01:40:00
better Ari head-to head and um I don't know there's like the excitement of of
01:40:07
someone just just getting stuck into it so yeah I think um yeah hopefully we can
01:40:14
kind of build off that and have a few a few events in New Zealand and and get some get some good guys down here and um
01:40:21
show it to the public in in real life cuz it's pretty fun and pretty fun to watch as well yeah and like there's some
01:40:28
sports you watch and you think I could I could give that a crack yeah yeah which
01:40:31
is like completely misguided but you do you do think that but um like cycling for example most people think oh yeah I
01:40:37
can ride a bike I um but you sp I don't think anyone would watch that think oh
01:40:41
yeah I could probably be quite quite good at that like there's so much going
01:40:44
on yeah yeah there is a lot I mean it's um yeah it's probably something that you
01:40:51
you start when you're well for me I start when I was young and it just becomes like sick nature um but
01:40:59
definitely like even like in ockland we've got the Victor Widow White Water Park in Monaco and like you know they
01:41:07
have kaying lessons there and um it actually is something that you can just give a go you might not be able to slide
01:41:14
off the ramp on your first attempt on your first You Know lesson or whatever but um you know eventually you will be
01:41:20
able to and you can and um there's a few you know these clubs kind of all around
01:41:25
the country in U it might be Flatwater king or surf ski or um Can po or anything like that but or Whitewater for
01:41:34
sure um but yeah there's there's kind of ways and then a games has just been um
01:41:40
in in toonga and like they had heaps of kids up there and it's kind of like the
01:41:45
first entry into into pedling and um so it's definitely something you can give a
01:41:50
go but um yeah like I say you might not slide off the ramp for your first dve might not be next to Finn in8 we can
01:41:56
send you off the ramp if you wanted to have a go Tom I remember I was on the whenever um it was that SRA Walker went
01:42:04
to the games and won a silver medal for the BMX um I was on the radio at the time and we did a thing afterwards where
01:42:10
um I joined her at the her training where the track where she trains at and um that that ramp on BMX it's it's it's
01:42:18
terrifying so scary and you see Sarah Walker and the other BMX is like when that gate goes down they they ped to get
01:42:24
extra speed yeah um I went down it with like the brakes on yeah and the wheels are tiny you feel like you're just
01:42:30
riding like a kids bike yeah um is there anything that we we haven't talked about
01:42:34
today that you were hoping to touch upon uh I don't know really no I remember one
01:42:42
of my mates yesterday I don't know did you get some good questions on the oh
01:42:46
someone else been um I feel like this is an inside one from a friend asked me to
01:42:49
ask you about mowing the Lawns yeah yeah that's what I was thinking in my head
01:42:53
yeah yeah how long did it take to mow the laws yeah because obviously so the the orchard Garden which is the the um
01:43:02
wedding and Cafe function Center that my parents ran um it has a a massive Garden
01:43:09
which they built you know that was kind of their passion um the garden the the weddings and stuff was sort of like just
01:43:16
a a thing to help that run um and they had a they they planted a big hedge maze um and so yeah like Blake who who would
01:43:26
have asked that question he he used to work for us or for my parents and um he did a lot of lawn moing but basically I
01:43:34
said to him I said the best way to answer that question is when you finish you start
01:43:40
again oh my God so it's like it's just con like it's never ending it's never
01:43:46
ending just CU it's so so much and like Dad dad being like just super busy would
01:43:52
probably just pump out in you know a couple days or something but um anyone else mowing at a normal Pace would uh
01:43:59
yeah would start again as soon as they done but there for some reason I never understood it when I was a kid there was
01:44:05
always like a refusal to get a ride on and so everything was just a push mower what was it was it do was it lack of
01:44:12
money or they were likely to spend the money I think it probably was I think yeah just they'd rather just just uh
01:44:20
walk or or half half run and mow The Lawns rather than uh yeah sit on a ride on and do it so um yeah it was but it's
01:44:29
a it's an awesome little um little place that they built down there and it was
01:44:34
pretty emotional when they when they sold up but at the same time you like I said earlier seeing them retired now and
01:44:40
and not having to to deal with the hospitality side of things is is pretty cool so yeah um but anything else I
01:44:47
don't know I think um probably probably all good on my side oh um yeah one fun
01:44:55
one for me oh actually no there's a c there there's a couple away if I forget
01:45:00
remind me to ask about Shan Johnson and with oh yeah um what advice would you give someone who's just starting out in
01:45:05
slayem canoing and um ideally wants to compete at a at a high level um maybe someone that's like jumped on the
01:45:12
bandwagon as a result of you winning yeah gold um oh I think probably just like keep sticking at it um I think
01:45:21
there's a lot of resilience that um one I've kind of learned and and built but
01:45:27
also had to show um quite a few times of of you know like when you get knocked down and and you come back up again it's
01:45:35
like all the time um there's there's struggles and challenges and all that
01:45:40
kind of stuff so probably that but also um if you're passionate about it just
01:45:45
like keep feeding that passion um and get out there and do it sometimes it's
01:45:51
you know like we talked about earlier like sometimes there's times where you're like I just can't be [ __ ] today
01:45:57
or like I'm tired or whatever but if you're really passionate about it and it
01:46:01
kind of goes with anything right like sport academics business whatever if you're passionate about it really just
01:46:09
lean into that passion because it's never a chore on the long in the long term if if
01:46:15
you're really passionate about it so um that's probably another thing and just
01:46:21
and like have as much fun as you can because sport in general is so fun to do and like that's why we do it cuz it's
01:46:28
fun um that's why sport was invented and I don't actually know I just made that
01:46:33
up but I'm I'm assuming like people just people would just started playing games
01:46:37
so um like and like yeah it's just super fun and um but as oppos I guess in terms
01:46:45
of actual like I don't know um advice um going yeah basically going go and find a local Club um and yeah get
01:46:57
into it through them um or yeah reach out like anyone just flick me a message I'm happy to to point you in the right
01:47:05
direction or um we got a website can New Zealand um it's our kind of national
01:47:10
Federation and I think there's a list of clubs and stuff on there and um you can
01:47:14
get into it but any type of paddling it's all good it's all fun and um Oakland it's like really accessible to
01:47:21
go ocean SK pedling um so they've got a few clubs here and they can go out in
01:47:26
the harbor on on flat day or super windy and surf waves and all sorts of stuff so
01:47:32
all of it's fun and yeah I feel like with the the the cracks of that answer and the key message you you kind of
01:47:38
channeling sge in a way that's what he would say to a young person through right hopefully yeah yeah so yeah just
01:47:46
just love it like yeah whatever you do just love it cuz um yeah I mean lots of people have seen said to
01:47:53
me like you only get to try to be an athlete once you know like once you get a bit further along then you know I
01:48:02
might not have had the ability or opportunity to to do what I do now so um yeah if you're passionate about
01:48:09
something just make it happen and um and love it and yeah I think you you probably make some
01:48:16
sacrifices um and the financial side definitely um but at the same time you're you're you're paying for
01:48:24
something you love doing so it's is it really a sacrifice yeah 100% great answer thank you um now Shan Johnson so
01:48:33
he he does a podcast now um what's the story someone told me to ask you this so
01:48:37
did he say he was going to give any Olympic Athlete $1,000 or something what what's the back story I think what they
01:48:44
were talking about is um how you know like countries like aaban or or Qatar or whatever they'll pay their Olympic
01:48:55
athletes or Olympic medalists likeus huge one sums of money like you know hundreds of thousands of dollars um if
01:49:02
they win or get a middle or whatever but I guess that's you know like not many of
01:49:06
their athletes actually go on to win um and I think they were talking about how New Zealand pays nothing um so like we
01:49:16
don't really get a a lump some win bonus um so I think that's kind of where it
01:49:22
started and he was like like n this is not on like these guys are are awesome of what they do and they're kind of you
01:49:28
know they're inspiring a nation and stuff and he said I'm going to put my
01:49:30
money where my mouth is and and give any of our individual gold medalists um a th000 bucks I think he said individual
01:49:39
cuz the seven girls had just won and he's like I don't want to Splash out a
01:49:43
th000 bucks to everyone on the team oh you know a WhatsApp group chat as well everyone be ling up even the reserves
01:49:49
yeah I think there was a bit there was a bit of chat that went on there um yeah and then I think like it was
01:49:55
like two days later that I won and then people were commenting on my Instagram posts or you know the New Zealand team
01:50:02
Instagram posts tagging him and being like pay this man's money and all this
01:50:05
stuff and I was kind of like what's going on here like and then I finally clicked and I don't know where I found
01:50:11
it it just popped up on on Instagram or whatever um of him talking about it and then so I was I commented just like an
01:50:21
emoji with the eyes like look sideways and then like and then it was like oh the buch has come to collect all this
01:50:28
stuff and then on the next week I think um yeah he was like oh you know like I'd
01:50:33
love to have you in studio if you you know to collect you got to come in studio and and come and see us and like
01:50:39
so when I came back after the games I went in and um and saw those guys and and went on went on their podcast and it
01:50:45
was like pretty cool to see someone like Shan Johnson or and you know like it's
01:50:51
cool like someone someone like you as well being like super happy to to have me in and and talk to me and like like
01:50:59
when I walked down Sean Johnson was facing the other way and he like turned around he's like just genuinely really
01:51:05
really excited to see me and um I think I was their first guest on the their podcast and like so he was just fizzing
01:51:11
and um yeah I think I don't know if uh anyone else who won has been on been um
01:51:18
on with them to to collect their cash but maybe he's closed the offer might he
01:51:23
might have shut down individual's only offer expires October one yeah but those
01:51:28
guys are awesome and uh it was really cool to meet them and um and yeah I think it was just before his last game
01:51:33
with the with the Warriors so um you hear he's making a comeback with the keyw yeah man yeah incredible back into
01:51:39
it it's pretty cool so yeah I'm looking forward to seeing how he goes um oh man
01:51:44
he's a he's a legend and he's he's done uh done big things for the for the game
01:51:49
here and um yeah it's just genuine nice guy um and Brook as well so um that was
01:51:55
really cool to meet those those guys and even caller to take us thousand bucks yeah yeah even cool it to get that and
01:52:03
um it was yeah I mean so that thousand bucks um will be going to to charity so um my is is that your decision or yeah
01:52:14
yeah cool yeah so um you know like I think well hopefully like I sort of said we we're work working through a lot of
01:52:22
things at at the moment and um you know hopefully pick up a few sponsorships and
01:52:25
stuff off the back of of Paris and um you know that thousand bucks like my Coach Works um at he works for kuu
01:52:34
racing like uh Flatwater um and he was doing a big project on disability um inclusion so did quite a lot of work
01:52:41
with um the hellberg foundation who um yeah basically are in in that space so um yeah I was I was kind of pretty Keen
01:52:51
to to put that money towards um something where you know it can it can help get get some get some people into
01:53:00
sport um that might not be able to do it otherwise without without them so I've
01:53:05
been down to the lake um Lake puki um with Aaron my coach um when he's when he's had a
01:53:11
few um people with disabilities um kaying and man it's pretty cool to see like the Joy on their face that it gives
01:53:19
them and yeah if that can be small help in that then yeah that's where it's
01:53:24
going so I'm pretty yeah I'm pretty pleased to to be able to give it to them
01:53:28
for sure [ __ ] you love your work don't you you love what you do yeah I mean
01:53:32
it's like yeah I don't I'm just lucky like yeah to be able to do it cuz it's
01:53:38
yeah it's just fun and like it's just honestly there's people that aon's um
01:53:45
taking peddling who you know can only move from you know from from the neck down up can't move from the neck down
01:53:53
sorry and you know they only can move their arms with just some small muscles in their shoulders basically and he's
01:54:00
taking them pedling and it's just like it's just a sense of freedom and I guess
01:54:04
some sort of normality as well where and they just you know just love it and it's
01:54:10
seeing that is pretty special um so yeah hopefully we can share it with more people well I was going to um finish the
01:54:18
episode and do this as a separate thing um but since you B up the charity angle we'll just um finished with this so um
01:54:24
generate who now sponsor you and have been um amazing sponsors of my podcast for over a year now they've given me a
01:54:31
sum of $220,000 to give to various Charities and $500 increments yeah so I've got a a few questions here about um
01:54:38
money Y and if you answer these 500 bucks will go to to Foundation okay yeah brilliant sure
01:54:46
geez they'll be stoked with you eh 1,000 bucks from Sha yeah I imagine they need
01:54:51
uh a lot more than what I can give them but if it if it goes into the pot and helps a little bit then yeah I'll be
01:54:56
happy 100% okay Finn butcher best piece of advice you've been given about money
01:55:02
oh um it's a really good question don't take up kaying yeah do not do not go
01:55:11
kaying try try golf first well that's yeah um go running on S maybe just get a
01:55:18
pair of shoes uh oh I was listening to um keep the change the other day off the back of um oh L Kim's yeah um you
01:55:27
speaking to him so uh probably something from him about around investing and um you know just start off with the dollar
01:55:34
and um and start learning about it and um yeah putting some some towards the future I think yeah are you a spender or
01:55:41
a saver spender well yeah kaying yeah I'm a spender um what's your worst money
01:55:48
mistake oh uh there's got to be some like a like sinking a lot of money on piss
01:55:55
anden taking up King I just I think all the answers are just taking up K have you ever had like
01:56:02
a dumb car or anything you been a car um oh like I I'm I think I'm reasonably
01:56:08
good with with spending on ridiculous things cuz um a lot of the money that I got was Mom and Dad's um and I saw the
01:56:18
sacrifice that they they gave to be able to give me that money so um wasn't ridiculously spending it but I think
01:56:26
probably yeah my course related costs and denan were not related to the course and the nobody's ever are yeah it's yeah
01:56:34
I suppose if you're taking money from your parents you have to be like respectful about it a because yeah yeah
01:56:38
well that's yeah I guess that's how I approached it so um yeah it's probably
01:56:43
not the worst money mistake but yeah I'm not very good at answering that sorry
01:56:49
does does money buy you happiness um no but it did allow me to go King which makes me happy so maybe it does yeah I
01:56:59
think I think these are like a base level I mean if if anyone's lying awake at night stressing about money that's
01:57:04
not a fun position to be for sure um but you actually you you probably need a lot
01:57:08
less than what you potentially think yeah I don't know I agree I think um I think you know there's a there's a level
01:57:15
where where if you can survive and and do what you want to do then you know you'll be happy but there's a lot of
01:57:23
other aspects that come into happiness that money can't solve so maybe it can
01:57:27
buy happiness but it also can't keep it so and it cannot buy one of these um what would you do if you woke
01:57:38
up tomorrow as a surprise billionaire um I would pay off my parents debts straight away um what they
01:57:48
got have they still got a mortgage or uh yeah yeah I think so I'm yeah yeah I'm not 100% sure but I think so um so
01:57:58
do that I would um probably yeah help out some more Charities um and try to see see people get into a bit more Sport
01:58:09
and then I would uh we talked about this the other other day actually with Courtney I'd build a white waterer
01:58:15
course off the Clyde Dam in my hometown sick yeah so I've got like a dream in my
01:58:22
my head um of yeah having a a course off the off the side of the Clyde Dam that just runs all the time and we don't have
01:58:30
to pay for water cuz um you know when you start paying for water things things get pretty expensive so um yeah that
01:58:37
would be what would they cost um just a rough stab in the dark like probably 15 to 20 15 mil maybe depends on a few
01:58:47
things but you should have asked Steven Adams yeah half a year salary yeah yeah for sure so I mean if there's
01:58:55
anyone out there that's listening to this podcast I've got a business plan in my
01:58:59
head I've got someone already lined up to build the course we're away the Finn
01:59:04
butcher the Finn butcher white waterer CER yeah yeah I'd probably name it the
01:59:09
Ellen Hoffman white would have seen it but yeah oh man I got goosebumps what a tribute that would be would be cool um
01:59:17
where would you like to retire um probably in central Tigo yeah I think I'll have to argue with Courtney
01:59:24
on that but yeah I definitely want to be down South for sure best thing about being a
01:59:30
kiwi um oh I think our community like yeah just being I think the community that gets behind you is
01:59:44
absolutely amazing and um I think a lot of other countries don't have that connection with with the rest of the
01:59:50
population um people don't know you don't know your story but they're like man this guy's doing cool
01:59:55
things like we'll get behind him um I think that and then yeah I think you know it just gives us a different
02:00:03
perspective being from this side of the world our country is pretty lucky to be kind of Hidden Away down here and I
02:00:09
think it it probably brings a few negative things uh financially as well as as positives but um man we're we're
02:00:18
from a pretty cool place in the world so yeah you that Community thing it's been
02:00:23
um it's been a big um a big point in this podcast today it's a big rock for
02:00:27
sure and it's um it's really cool um that you that you acknowledge that because you know here you are you're a
02:00:32
high performance athlete you're a gold medalist it' be easy for you to be so
02:00:36
zoned in and have that such single-minded Focus that you've got sort of blinders onto that yeah and maybe
02:00:41
acknowledge that later on once your career is over but to to be in your late 20s and a gold medalist and being able
02:00:46
to see that and acknowledge it now yeah um that's really cool mate yeah thank
02:00:50
you yeah I'm yeah I mean I said it a lot but it just it's the only reason that
02:00:56
I'm here so yeah it's pretty special to be able to acknowledge it on something
02:01:03
like this so yeah Finn butcher mate you're a great New Zealander thanks so much for coming here today I'm finally
02:01:10
uh I'm I'm glad we finally connected and made this happen it's been really cool
02:01:13
yeah thanks for having me it's uh I was pretty excited to come along and yeah
02:01:17
I'm stoked to talk to you so cheers mate yeah sorry I'm I don't have $1,000 for
02:01:21
you lat Sean's podcast no all good all good no worries