Qualifying early for the London Olympics has given Mike Dawson peace of mind and handed the 25-year-old his best opportunity to get the jump on his slick European rivals.
The slalom kayaker qualified a spot for New Zealand as 11th-ranked nation at the world championships in Slovakia last September and he and K1 women's paddler Luuka Jones will spend a valuable three weeks on the Lea Valley Olympic whitewater course in Hertfordshire, about 30km north of London, next month.
The Tauranga-based paddler is the third New Zealand male to make the Games event, after Donald Johnston in 1992 and Owen Hughes in 1996, and will get another week at Lea Valley just before the Games start.
Jones, the first New Zealand woman to make the Olympics in Beijing, and also based in Tauranga, qualified the country 14th at Slovakia. She was 21st in her Olympic debut.
Dawson said that with many of the European nations still to finalise their Olympic selections, he and Jones, while not quite having the slalom course to themselves, would be able to train almost unhindered on the 300m-long rapids.
"Three weeks there is a huge bonus for us because the Olympic course is only open for training for four weeks before the Games - three weeks next month and another couple of four-day camps," Dawson said yesterday.
"Everyone who has been selected so far will be there but a lot of countries, while they've qualified a spot, are still in the process of selecting their paddlers and most of those selection races are happening in April.
"That plays to our advantage because while we're spending time on the Olympic course a lot of the other paddlers are still fighting to get there."
Dawson has spent time at Lea Valley, a man-made course where the 82 K1 and C1/C2 paddlers will be propelled by the 15cu m of water per second.
"I love the course and the new rapid blocks make the river seem more real, stopping the water just like a real river, as opposed to the old plastic rocks you usually get that let the water seep through.
"It's big, hard and physical top to bottom, which suits me. You can't just go full on from the top, you need to pace yourself down the course and that's how I race."
Dawson dominated his last race in New Zealand before heading to London to start his pre-Olympic buildup. In Kawerau, last Saturday, he won the KI at the North Island champs, stopping the clock at 80.33sec, seven seconds ahead of Te Puke's Carl Whitehead.
Ben Gibb, fresh from the Oceania champs in Sydney where he was the best of the C1 Kiwis, won the C1 title, while Nikki Whitehead won the K1 women's open title, with Jones absent.
After his stint at Lea Valley, Dawson heads to Slovakia to train before putting away his carbon fibre craft and pulling out his plastic fantastic for the creek racing at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado, in early June.
Two World Cup slalom races in Cardiff and France round out his preparation.
One of the world's leading extreme kayakers, Dawson has been mindful that spending too much time in his plastic creek boat could harm his Olympic chances.
"I love the creek racing and it's what I've been brought up on but it does take away a bit from slalom, so until London I'm keeping the extreme stuff as low key as possible. After the Games I can go hard."
Not that Dawson has been able to curb his extreme tendencies altogether.
Dawson and Czech star Vavra Hradilek made history over summer by creating and running the most spectacular canoe slalom course attempted, running the Kaituna River near Rotorua at full flow, including the spectacular Trout Pool Falls, a 5m drop usually attempted only by the most experienced kayakers in plastic creek boats.
Not satisfied with that challenge, the pair set up gates down the stretch of whitewater and ran it in carbon-fibre slalom boats.
"No one really paddles that part of the river at that sort of flow," Dawson explained.
"If you get stuck and there's no one there to pull you out, basically you'd have to get fairly creative to get yourself out of the situation. Knowing how tough the competition and the course in London is going to be, we decided to think outside the box and utilise what we had right here in our back garden."
Dawson got to know Hradilek during their time in the junior ranks.
"He comes from a full-on slalom background, it's all he has known since he started when he was 10. I'm most at home paddling on a river somewhere in a plastic boat, more extreme stuff, although I am getting more comfortable around gates. Vavra and I both bring quite different skills to the table but I've been interested in watching his technique around the gates. He does more strokes and is a powerful little nugget whereas I do less and keep the boat moving more. It has been a great learning experience."
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