Quaid Thompson in full flight at the Canoe Racing New Zealand national sprint championships at Lake Karapiro this month. Thompson claimed his sixth K1 1000m title. Photo / Sally Cameron
Quaid Thompson in full flight at the Canoe Racing New Zealand national sprint championships at Lake Karapiro this month. Thompson claimed his sixth K1 1000m title. Photo / Sally Cameron
Gisborne’s national 1km canoeing champion Quaid Thompson left for Europe on Sunday to pursue his goal of qualifying for the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.
By that time, it will be 44 years since his father Alan won two canoeing gold medals at the 1984 Olympics, also atLos Angeles.
Poverty Bay Kayak Club member Quaid Thompson turned 28 in January and reckons he still has at least two more Olympic cycles as an internationally competitive paddler.
He has yet to compete at the Olympics, although he has qualified twice.
“My life revolves around kayaking, and it’s been like that forever,” he said before he left Gisborne for his training base in Racice, in the Czech Republic.
He has been the dominant figure in New Zealand K1 1000m racing since 2018, but hasn’t been national champion every year.
“I’ve missed a couple of nationals – one, in 2020, because I was racing in Australia and another, in 2022, because I had Covid.”
My life revolves around kayaking, and it’s been like that forever.
In 2021 he finished third at the nationals. He thinks he had strep throat that year.
Other than that, he has been national K1 1000m champion every year ... that’s six titles starting in 2018. The most recent was achieved at Lake Karapiro this month.
The qualifying journey for Los Angeles starts this year.
“A new system for qualifying is being implemented,” Thompson said. “It’s done off world rankings. You have to do eight events over two years and, to qualify outright, you need to have a top-five ranking.
“Then there’s secondary qualification through Oceania at the continental championships. If you don’t qualify through the rankings, you have to win the Oceania championship at the start of 2028. It’s one race.”
New Zealand champion K1 1000m paddler Quaid Thompson at Gisborne Airport, off to Europe to pursue his bid for Olympic qualification.
Thompson was due to arrive in the Czech Republic on Monday and “get straight into training”, but he had a 19-hour delay out of Auckland and another delay in Los Angeles waiting for a connecting flight to Europe.
He will stay in a Kiwi-owned house he has used as a base over the past 15 years when training and racing in Europe. It allows him to live cheaply and remain central to most of the big regattas.
“To call it a doer-upper would be an understatement,” Thompson said. “But it’s only a hundred metres from the Czech national flat-water sports centre, which features a man-made 2000 metre lake for rowing and kayaking.
“I’ll be four months there [in Racice] on and off with races in between.”
His first event, an International Canoe Federation (ICF) world cup event in Szeged, Hungary, from May 8 to 10, is an eight-hour drive south-east from Racice. Then it is back to base and a three-hour drive north-west to Brandenburg, Germany, for a world cup event from May 14 to 17.
The training/competing routine continues until the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Poznan, Poland, from August 26 to 30 – a five-hour drive from Racice to the north-east.
Selection to compete in the world champs is dependent on performance in world cup races.
On Monday, Thompson received email confirmation of his selection to compete as a New Zealand paddler in the world cup series
He will head home for summer to work, save and train for the next European paddling season.
