Sportsister meets Jess Walker

03.03.11

As next year’s Olympic Games edge ever closer, athletes across the globe are entering the final year of preparations - a make or break year for many British sports stars to prove how they can help make Team GB victorious on home soil.

London 2012 will see various young athletes take centre stage, and at just 20 years of age canoeist Jess Walker hopes to be one of them. Having already proven herself as a paddling success, the Junior European champion hopes to build on her Olympic experience - using Beijing 2008 and her 10 year career as stepping stones to a London 2012 triumph.

Jess has been away from her boat for the winter season, skiing in St. Moritz amongst other activities to help build her fitness in preparation for the year ahead. But now she’s firmly back in the driver’s seat, and as the team get set for six weeks of training on Australian water we managed to catch the Olympian on solid ground for a quick chat about her sport, the looming Games and what her hopes are for the future of her career.

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Firstly, for those less familiar with your sport, can you explain what exactly sprint canoeing is?

Well most people don’t know much about it, which is a shame because I obviously love it! It’s a really versatile sport where you have to be really fit. We do a lot of training - three times a day, six times a week. For women there’s two distances that we race over - 500 metres and then there’s 200 metres as well.

There’s also K1 which is one person in a boat, K2 which is two people and K4 which is four people, so this is why it’s quite versatile because there’s different distances and different boats you can go in. For the Olympics there’s four medals to be won, that’s K1, K2 and K4 500 meters and K1 200, there’s only one space for that one.

What are the main differences in the places that you sit in the boat in K2 and K4?

I’m normally the driver. The driver has to steer, which isn’t the most important thing - anyone can do that, it’s a very natural thing to do for us. But you have to set the rhythm and you set the stroke.

“I kind of landed in that driver’s seat, not by accident, but from a younger age they discovered that I would be a good driver and I sort of held on to that.”

The person behind them has to give the power, otherwise that person can’t do the things they need to do.

What skills are important to have in order to be a successful canoeist?

You need to be very strong! And because you need to be strong you need to be really fit as well. In the winter, because it’s so cold, we don’t go on the water - we come off and we don’t see our boats for about two months. We do swimming, running, gym and spinning. We just build up our VO2 and get really strong in the gym, then we come back on to the water and because we’ve got that extra fitness and extra strength we transfer it back into the boat.

Do you find it hard being away for your sport for so long?

No, I like it! Because you spend the whole season in your boat, it’s actually quite nice to have a break from it and you get to step away and analyse the things you need to improve on your technique. It takes us two weeks probably to get that fitness back in the boat and then by the time we do selection we’ll be nearly at our peak and then in the summer we’ll be at our peak racing.

Taking a step back, how was it that you first got into canoeing?

Well my grandma’s friend’s grandson did it, so it was just a friend of a friend. It was at the Royal Canoe Club in Teddington, in the summer, and there were lots of girls down there and we just got on really well. I picked it up just naturally and just carried on from there really.

So how did you progress from being a 10 year old novice to an Olympian?

Well it took me a few years obviously to get onto the team, so when I was about 14/15 I started going to little international events and winning them. Then when I was 16 I first went to the Junior European Championships - I did that in K2 and we finished 6th, and I was the youngest to go to the Junior Europeans. Then I won the Junior World Marathon Championships that year as well, so that was probably the first year that I really got strong results and was heading in the right direction.

Then when I was 17, Miklos (Simon, her coach) had come along, I won the Junior European Championships in the Olympic event, and that was the first time anyone had ever done that. So then someone said to me well you should probably go for the Olympics! I ended up going to the Beijing Olympics and I won the Junior European Championships that year as well. Then after that it was quite hard because obviously everyone’s expecting you to do really well and I just needed to rest.

Then last year unfortunately I got injured - I got compartment syndrome in my arms (where the muscle gets too big for the sheaf), which kind of ruined my year for me. It was OK, I didn’t get terrible results, but they weren’t good. I had my operation in October and now I’m 100 per cent recovered and this year’s looking good!

And how did it feel to be the youngest female canoeist to have ever competed at the Olympics?

It’s really surreal! I’m proud of it, I still think of it and I’m proud of it - but there’s a lot more better things for me to do, like winning the World Championships and then eventually winning an Olympic medal!

Are there any other achievements that really stick out for you?

Winning the Junior European Championships (in 2007 and 2008), because the European Championships are like the World Championships for us because the European countries are the strongest, especially for women. That’s probably the one that stands out for me, but hopefully after this year I could tell you a better one than that!

What does the rest of 2011 hold?

Well we’re going to Australia to start back into training on the water, then we have our selection in April so basically whoever comes top six, say, will go into the boats. The first World Cup is in May, in Czech Republic, and then the second World Cup is, I think, the week afterwards in Germany. Then it’s the European Championships in Serbia, followed by the World Championships in Hungary. On top of all that we have to qualify for the Olympics this year - you have to come top eight in K1 and top six in the crew boat.

How are you feeling heading into the final year of preparation for 2012?

I feel a lot better than I did last year - I think once I get this racing season done and I get some good results under my belt then I’ll feel more confident about racing in the Olympics. Definitely physically and mentally I’m there - I think because I’ve already done an Olympics, I’ve experienced it, I really feel like that’s an advantage to me.

Do you have any sporting idols?

The one in my sport would be Tim Brabants. I look up to him and he’s always been good to me. I always found Kelly Holmes inspiring, not for the obvious reasons, not just because she won those two gold medals, but before she did that I’d always watched her, and always admired her because she had a lot of injures and a lot of set backs and she persevered and got what she wanted.

Do you have any tips for prospective canoeists?

I’d say join early summer/end of spring time and go down to your local club and just enjoy it! It’s a good sport, there’s so much to it. It’s good fun.

Can you sum up what canoeing means to you?

It’s fun… but I don’t want it to sound like I’m just going out and having fun all the time! When you win it’s just like the best feeling ever, and I want to carry on getting those results so I can be proud of what I’ve done. It’s challenging for me, and I enjoy that.

And finally, can you tell us something about you that not many people know?

Oh, I don’t know! There’s not that much interesting stuff about me! Well, I really want to use my sporting career as a platform - I’m doing a nutrition course and I’d like to work with young girls on eating because when I was at school I never struggled with my eating and my relationship with food because I had my sport to help me out with that, but my friends at school had eating disorders, two of them did, and they really struggled with it.

You see so many girls struggling with this thing that’s just so natural. I like to do research and I’m working with a company called E-ACT, who go into schools, so I’m going to work with them and talk to young girls, so I’ve already sort of got it rolling.

Jessica Whittington, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine

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