Luuka Jones is at home for a quick visit after winning silver at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Cup in Slovakia. Photo / Andrew Warner.
Luuka Jones is at home for a quick visit after winning silver at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Cup in Slovakia. Photo / Andrew Warner.
many, the distinction that comes with being an Olympic silver medallist would be enough. But Bay of Plenty kayaker Luuka Jones knew she had more in her.
After a lot of hard work and preparation she was able to achieve success again, securing her first podium finish at an ICFcanoe slalom World Cup on the Bratislava course, in Slovakia last weekend, picking up another silver.
"It's something that I've wanted to achieve for a long time you know, I didn't want to retire having only achieved an Olympic medal. It's a huge field over there and it's a course that I've raced at in the past and yeah, it's a great result," the Tauranga paddler said.
"It's a big water venue, I raced the worlds there in 2011 and a World Cup there in 2013.
"It was good to go back but I didn't remember how difficult the venue actually is."
She arrived just four days ahead of race day, but having just competed at the first world cup event in London she gave herself a rest day, which meant she only had three days to train on the course.
Tauranga's Luuka Jones competes in the Women's C1 Heats during the 2019 ICF Canoe Slalom World Cup at Lee Valley White Water Centre in London on June 14. Photo / Getty Images
"I turned up and I was really struggling the first couple of days just to get used to the water. It's really fast and big but it's also shallow in some places, so it just took a bit."
She said, in the world cup, athletes come up against the best field, with up to three boats per nation competing, so to come away with silver was a huge milestone.
"It's nice to kind of think back on the journey and how much I've improved over that time."
She says she made a "big mistake" at the top of the course, and in the end came up .9 of a second behind Austria's Corinna Kuhnle.
"I definitely lost a couple of seconds at the top of the course."
Just days after claiming that silver, the former Waiariki Academy of Sport student is back in the Bay, spending less than two weeks catching up with family, her sponsors and of course training.
"It is a quick trip really and it is a long way to come back but I definitely think it's worth it," Jones, who became the first New Zealander to win an Olympic medal in canoe slalom at her third Olympics in Rio in 2016, said.
"I came home two years ago for a couple of weeks and it really broke up the trip, you know, six months away is quite a long time and it's nice to come back and catch up with family and just remember what New Zealand looks like."
As expected for an elite athlete of Jones' calibre, it's not all play for the paddler, making the most of hometown training sessions.
"I'll do mostly gym sessions and flat water paddling and it's actually a really good opportunity to catch up with my kind of sports providers, you know the team of people behind me from High Performance Sport, catch up with my sponsors."
Jones' next big competition takes place in Prague in August, but she has plenty to keep her busy beyond that.
"It's a big year, it's Olympic selection at the world champs end of September and after that I stay in Europe for 10 days and then go straight to Tokyo for a training camp. The Tokyo Olympic course is finished, I guess they're fine tuning it but we've got a test event there in October."
