KEY POINTS:
Here's a big hand to former champion canoeist Ben Fouhy, who did one of the most difficult things there is to do at an Olympics - he fronted the media after a disappointment and talked openly about it.
All athletes find such a scenario worrisome.
Imagine it -
you train for years, really do the work and then do not perform up to expectations. You've hung it all out there on a world stage and then you have to go and speak to a group of people who are going to amplify your mistakes.
Many athletes, perhaps even most, don't react well to this situation. Some get defensive or brooding and some find reasons to avoid the contact altogether. Discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina, after her latest disappointment, was seen scribbling notes in the Bird's Nest infield. It is not known whether they were key talking points but that was when Faumuina produced her now infamous 'You can't take this moment away from me' remark after her 'moment' looked to be eminently forgettable.
However, to be fair, Faumuina fronted as well, if with a more belligerent air than Fouhy who looked crushed by finishing third in his K1 1000m heat at Shunyi. He plainly wanted to win and go straight through to the final on Friday, rather than contest the semifinal tomorrow.
One of the most difficult things in sport is loss of form. The term suggests that it is only a temporary situation but Fouhy has now been struggling with loss of form for 18 months.
He has a reputation as an individual so focused that intensity often takes over from interaction but he was disarmingly open yesterday.
It was impossible not to feel for the man. He is clearly a talented paddler - world champion in 2003 and Olympic silver medallist in Athens four years ago. But he is just as clearly out of sorts with his form and his sport.
"I felt pretty average, actually," Fouhy said after his race. "I felt like I have for every other race I've had for the past one and a half years.
"I am struggling to find the energy when I race. I have done the work in training and my racing is certainly not a reflection of what I am achieving in training. I have worked harder than ever before and I have done some great times in training."
But race day is the problem and Fouhy is now wondering whether he has over-trained or 'over-cooked it', as he called it.
Present and budding sports stars, take note. You get much more sympathetic treatment when you front up as Fouhy did. But maybe his openness is a symptom of how puzzled he is with his own lack of form and his ironic aside that he is now a lot more forgiving of athletes who aren't doing well. He shot to world champion level very quickly and plainly felt that the world was at his feet.
"I didn't want to be one of those athletes who got to the top and then fell off and could never get back," Fouhy mused.
Perhaps the problem is that very intensity of his - ironically the very thing that carried him to world champion level originally.
Everywhere you go at these Olympics, from Michael Phelps down, you hear athletes saying they are just trying to relax; to have fun; to be at the Olympics without letting it overwhelm them; to make it just another tournament or meeting or regatta.
Canoeing coaches Ian Ferguson and Paul MacDonald are cases in point. The two Olympic greats were intense on the water but totally relaxed off it. I can remember thinking at times that if they were any more laid back, they'd be asleep - but it worked. They did the work and snapped into the zone when they were ready.
Maybe that wouldn't work for Fouhy. But when you hear Ferguson say that Fouhy is so intense that 'he forgets about the other things in life', it might be time to try a new approach.
Whatever the answer is, I hope Fouhy finds it. He's got too much talent, has worked too hard and seems too courageous a soul for his canoeing to drop off now. There wouldn't be many people disappointed to make an Olympic semifinal. But Ben Fouhy is one.
I, for one, will be cheering for him.
