THE CANADIAN PRESS
OAKVILLE, Ont. — Adam van Koeverden was thumbing through magazines in an airport gift shop four years ago, when he came across Sports Illustrated’s medal predictions for the Athens Olympics.
He scanned the pages for the kayak events, but his name wasn’t listed among the top three favourites.
“I just put it at the back of the rack and thought, What do they know?”‘ van Koeverden says.
He makes a good point.
The 26-year-old kayaker from Oakville, Ont., went on to capture gold in the K-1 500 metres and bronze in the 1,000 metres in Athens, and carried Canada’s flag into the closing ceremonies as the country’s only double medallist.
Now, when talk turns to Canada’s medal hopes at the Beijing Games, no one would dare leave van Koeverden off their list.
He has utterly dominated his event so far this season, winning five of six K-1 — or men’s singles — World Cup races. At a World Cup in Poznan, Poland last month, he paddled to a world record in the 500 metres of one minute 35.630, becoming the first to dip under the 1:36 barrier.
When van Koeverden lands in Beijing, he knows the spotlight will be shining on him. But while another athlete might crumble under the weight of heavy expectations, van Koeverden says bring them on.
“I don’t mind that kind of pressure,” he says after a recent training session at his hometown Burloak Canoe Club. “I’m really proud to be that person this time around.”
Four years ago in Athens, van Koeverden ruffled some feathers by calling out Canadian athletes for their just-happy-to-be-here mentality.
But his coach Scott Oldershaw says the kayaker’s confidence and his own lofty expectations — coupled of course with his physical makeup and his eye-popping capacity for hard work — are what make him the world class athlete that he is.
“He was thinking that when he was only 13th in the world, he was thinking I want to be on the podium, I should be on the podium, this isn’t good enough,”‘ Oldershaw says. “It was the same after he came third in the 1,000 in Athens, it just wasn’t good enough.
“I think a lot of athletes are afraid to make that commitment, they’re afraid because the majority of the time they’re going to fail.”
If there’s an ounce of fear in van Koeverden, he hides it well. But then, his confidence is well-earned.
Van Koeverden is the perfect combination of an incredible work ethic in a body that’s capable of an incredible workload.
With his well-muscled shoulders, he’s built like a yield sign. He boasts the lung capacity of a marathoner or a cross-country skier, and his resting heart rate rivals star cyclist Lance Armstrong at his best.
“His VO2 (the capacity for his body to utilize oxygen) is pretty high compared to other athletes, especially paddlers,” Oldershaw said. “His resting heart rate is in the 30s (the average for a male is 70), so his heart doesn’t have to work as hard to get oxygen. He’s just a little different than the average athlete.”
Then there’s his boundless capacity for work, which leaves his teammates shaking their heads.
“I watch him on the water and it’s just one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen in a human being,” says Mark Oldershaw, Scott’s son and a member of the paddling team for Beijing. “I think his mental toughness is unparalleled and just the willingness to put himself through so much pain.
“I don’t know why he does it, if he dislikes himself that much to hurt himself every day,” he adds with a laugh. “I just think he’s willing to put everything out there to achieve his goals.”
Van Koeverden is one athlete that Scott Oldershaw never has to prod to work harder. The coach is actually more of a calming force, says the paddler.
Athletes are creatures of habit, and are often superstitious about competing. But that can spell trouble in an event like the Olympics, where routines are disrupted, and training and living arrangements can be far from ideal.
The night following van Koeverden’s bronze-medal performance in the 1,000 metres in Athens, his clothes were drying outside when a gust of wind blew away his favourite hat.
“It was the hat he’d worn for three years, never raced without it,” Oldershaw says. “It could have been a huge issue, and you could see he was starting to think that this might be a problem, but we just grabbed another one, no big deal.”
The coach, himself a former Olympian and a 16-year veteran of the national team, throws curves at his athletes so that they don’t become cemented in certain routines.
“Sometimes I’ll be late, or do something different,” Oldershaw says. “I’ll just sit somewhere where I can’t be found. Adam will say, Where were you? I was looking for you.’ It’s just changing things up so we’re not a slave to a certain routine.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in Beijing on the day of the race, the night before the race. It’s out of our control, so we have to be able to deal with anything.”
Van Koeverden will lead a strong canoe/kayak team that will race in all 12 Olympic flatwater events for the first time in 20 years and could bring home several medals.
Van Koeverden’s toughest challenge at the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park in Beijing should come from Tim Brabants of Britain and Norway’s Eirik Veraas Larsen. Former rival Nathan Baggeley, who won a pair of silver medals in Athens, won’t be in Beijing — the Australian is in jail on drug charges.
As one of the more outspoken members of Canada’s team, van Koeverden knows he could be a go-to guy in Beijing for media queries about everything from the pollution to human rights in China. He’s already taken some heat back home from readers after he wrote on his blog that he was against boycotting the Olympics.
“I don’t have any real solutions or insight, I’m a kayaker,” he says with a shrug. “I have a degree in kinesiology, not world issues or political science. But I think this is a positive thing for China. It’s already produced more dialogue than there’s ever been.”
Van Koeverden was class valedictorian in 2007 when he graduated from McMaster University in Hamilton. His speech focused on environmental issues.
Van Koeverden’s also an avid sports fan. He attended the Toronto Raptors’ two playoff games in Orlando when he was there for a training camp. On his recent blog posting, he wrote of being “very stoked” about the Raptors’ off-season trade (T.J. Ford and Rasho Nesterovic to Indiana for Jermaine O’Neal), plus the Toronto Blue Jays’ appointment of Cito Gaston as manager.
