Page 121 - 2022-08-01 Paddling Magazine

WHITEWATER

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Just A Number

Why you're never too old to be a whitewater world champion by marissa tiel

LAST SUMMER, four-time freestyle world kayaking—also peak in their early 20s, according to great minds in sports medicine. They recom-
champion Eric Jackson took up training for a to the same research. mended more rest and recovery, and phasing his
new discipline. He was eyeing a spot on the U.S. You don’t want to do most sports forever, ac- training to peak precisely when he needed to.
extreme slalom team. cording to Jackson, who grew up as a competitive Ford has always been quick to adapt to the
Jackson trained with his 28-year-old son, Dane, swimmer. “Do you want to swim back and forth in shifting sport of whitewater slalom, and he
ahead of trials. Part of their training was head- a chlorinated pool looking at a black line and then credits the ability to change for allowing him to
to-head paddling on flatwater. In most cases, when you get to the T on the other side, you turn remain competitive for so long. Even as boats
Jackson was as fast or faster than his son. around and return and just do it over and over for got shorter and courses tightened, he remained
At 58, he’s now the oldest member of the U.S. 50 years, 40 years, 30 years,” he says. “You want one of the top male slalom kayakers in the coun-
national team after qualifying for the newly-added to do it to prove you can be the best, then you try, in its deepest field. “The key has been to just
extreme slalom event. People keep asking him if get there and it’s like, man, wouldn’t I love to go not stop moving,” he told one reporter ahead of
he’ll retire. kayaking or skiing and do something fun.” his final world championship in 2017.
“Why would you want to retire if you’re having There are many reasons why athletes choose But toward the end of Ford’s competitive sla-
fun doing it,” Jackson says. to leave high-performance sport: career, mar- lom career, the kids who grew up in the shorter
The questions kept coming. Wasn’t he finding riage, kids and injury are the most common. slalom boats were catching up. “They were able
it harder to recover? Not really. He started paying Why they stay is clear, especially if they’re able to do things I could do, but they were doing it
more attention to who was asking the questions. to organize their lives around paddling. Jackson just with instinct,” Ford says. “I had to think about
“They weren’t working out,” he says. “They weren’t traveled between rivers with his young family in a it, and the slight amount of thinking about it just
athletes anymore.” giant RV, while two-time extreme kayaking world made it tougher.”
From running whitewater to honing their skills champion Mariann Saether follows the paddling While Ford is now retired from slalom paddling,
on the slalom course, kayakers flock to the sport season south with her family. They split their time he’s still out on the water at least four times a week.
for many reasons. But what keeps them on the between the road, their home in Norway and their One discipline that hasn’t seen much growth
river is a never-ending supply of fun, challenge and riverside home in Chile. is squirt boating. The low-volume boat remains a
life-long learning. And as long as your skills remain “I never get bored in my kayak,” says Saether, favorite for Canadian freestyle team member Matt
sharp, you can compete at a high-performance who learned to paddle more than 25 years ago. Hamilton. He’s currently qualified to represent the
level for decades. Now 41, Saether won her world titles at age 35 country at the next world championships in 2022
At what age are high-performance whitewater and 39. While she participated in a whirlwind of and was also part of the squirt boat contingent
paddlers typically peaking? There isn’t much activities growing up in Norway, kayaking has her Canada sent to Spain in 2019, who were all over 30.
scientific data about whitewater kayaking, but heart. There are younger paddlers participating
we can look to the sport’s Olympic discipline for “I got pretty good on a snowboard, [at] in squirt, says Hamilton, 46. They just aren’t
some clues. In a 2016 paper, researchers analyzed handball, I even did synchronized swimming and performing as well in competitions. So veteran
the ages of top performers in 40 sports at the baton-twirling,” she adds. “It all got boring. But out paddlers like Hamilton, who have more than three
2012 London Olympics. The top 10 athletes in on the river, I am never bored.” decades of experience on the water, continue to
canoeing, which didn’t separate flatwater and David Ford made the Canadian whitewater compete at world championship levels.
whitewater events, had an average age of 27.5 slalom team for the first time in 1984. Thirty-three Hamilton, who lives a few minutes from the
for women and 27.8 for men. The youngest solo years later, he qualified for his final national team take-out on the Ottawa River, says he’s putting
athlete was Australia’s Jessica Fox, 18, who took in 2017 at age 50. time in on the water. In 2021, he logged more than
home silver in women’s K-1, while the oldest Ford is a five-time Olympian and in 1999, at age 100 days in his boat.
athlete on the podium was 34-year-old Tony 32, became the first non-European paddler to win The idea of just putting the time in has served
Estanguet of France, who won gold in men’s C-1 a men’s K1 title at a slalom world championship. fellow freestyle kayaker Jackson well throughout
slalom. He loved being on the water, training and the his career. “If you are an athlete focused on that
Swimmers, in contrast, peak in their early 20s. puzzle of high performance: what pieces can you part of it, the physical side of it,” he says, “and
Gymnasts, divers and BMX cyclists—all sports add and subtract to give you an edge? As he got you don’t let it go, you maintain it, it doesn’t just
requiring flexibility and acrobatics, like freestyle older, those pieces changed, and he gained access go away.”

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