So it worked out well for Dave Florence
I’m so pleased my concerns about expectations getting the better of Dave Florence were ill-founded, and that he successfully built on his qualifying performance to perform outstandingly and win the silver in the men’s C1. The winner, Slovakia’s Martin Martikan, is one of the sport’s superstars who won Olympic gold as a 17 year old in 1996 then won silver in the 2000 and 2004 Games. Commiserations to Campbell Walsh, who harboured realistic hopes of a Gold medal in the men’s Kayak. He’ll be disconsolate after a terrible semi final run, in which one small error magnified into a significant time loss. It's a salutary lesson about complexity and the need for each small detail in a performance to go right enough. This is something that the French and Germans seem to do with frightening regularity – and seemingly with different paddlers at each World or Olympic championship. The atmosphere within the GB camp will be interesting with such a mixture of success and disappointment. My guess is it will remain very professional and focused – the celebrations and the post mortems can wait till the team’s task is complete – and Fiona Pennie starts racing tomorrow.
