RICHARD Jefferies has declared himself in ‘awesome’ shape for his assault on Olympic gold tomorrow after getting his oar in at Eton Dorney.

The 25-year-old Isle of Wight canoeist, pictured, used Tuesday’s C1 single 1,000 metres as preparation for his main event and, despite having to dig even deeper than he is used to in his 200 metres speciality, he felt the trial run to be an unqualified success.

With the longer distance sacrificing speed for endurance, and the boisterous grandstands to get used to, Jefferies finished seventh in the B final in 4min 42.992sec, out of his comfort zone in more ways than one. And that was precisely the point.

“I’ve just been focusing on the C1 200 metres,” he said, “so we were using the 1,000 as a means of getting used to the crowd and adapting to it.

“With the 200 you’re putting everything into emptying the tank in 40 seconds, whereas in the 1,000 you’re dragging that out over four minutes, which is tough work.

“I’m used to doing 95 to 100 strokes per minute and for this I had to take it down to 50 to 60. I tried my best but by 500 metres I was just carrying lactic because we hadn’t worked on it at all.”

 

Full story in today's Daily Echo