Clarke ready to channel Tokyo snub with fresh Paris perspective
By James Reid
Joe Clarke’s canoeing career has been as choppy as the whitewater he’ll be carving through at the Paris Olympics.
Crowned Olympic champion in 2016, the Stoke star missed out on selection for Tokyo 2020 but will return to the Games stage with a genuine chance of winning two gold medals in Paris.
He does so in the form of his life, taking four world titles since Tokyo, with a fresh perspective Clarke’s extra weapon to take a shot at history.
“Achieving what I did in Rio at 23 years old, it felt almost like it came slightly too soon,” he said.
“Your first Games is a learning experience, the second is the one you perform at so to go to your first and win gold, you have almost cheated the system a bit.
“My goal when I was younger was always to become Olympic champion. Then to have achieved that so early on, it was like where do I go from here?
“Then you come crashing down to reality four years later when you miss out in Tokyo. It was tough to pick myself up after that. It has been one hell of a journey.
“As weird as it may sound, Covid may have helped me because it put things into perspective.
“I spent all my life chasing gates down a section of white water, that was my life, that was the way I defined myself.
“Somewhere I got lost in chasing this Olympic dream and gold medal that I lost the enjoyment along the way, but it is something I have found again.
“It was only when that real low of missing Tokyo hits that you realise things are a bit tougher and you are asking yourself those questions of if you want to carry on.
“You answer the questions by the enjoyment. I did so well at those Olympics because I was there to enjoy it and soak in the experience, I have got that enjoyment back.”
Clarke’s new perspective has also been moulded by other changes on and off the water.
The addition of a second discipline, kayak cross, means Clarke is now targeting a pair of golds in Paris having won the last three kayak cross world championships.
But the motivation of making son Hugo, earlier this year, proud is the biggest fuel for Clarke’s campaign.
“It [becoming a father] has changed my outlook massively,” he added. “A lot of what I am doing is to make Hugo proud.
“It sounds silly because he is only nine months old, he doesn’t know what is going on but to think at some point he will be old enough to understand what is going on and see all the medals in the medal cabinet and go ‘yeah my dad smashed it.’
“He is going to be 18 months old in Paris, he will be in the grandstand and to think if he can see his dad winning gold.
“Now when I go away, every night away from home is a night away from my son, so I have to make every day that I am away count.”
As a new dad and an athlete at the top of his game, Clarke knows the importance of good nutrition. Aldi, the Official Supermarket Partner of Team GB and ParalympicsGB, supports all athletes with a monthly food voucher, to fuel them through training, competitions, and past Olympic Games.
Since taking in the Tokyo Games back at the British Canoeing training centre, Clarke has been an irresistible force and won double global gold in kayak and kayak cross, the new Olympic discipline.
“A huge motivation for me is the addition of the kayak cross. It is an event that really suits me,” he said.
“Up until the world championships, I was always looking at two medals, one of them hopefully being gold was the Paris plan.
“I proved to myself at the home world championships that two golds are possible. That makes it quite exciting, that is the dream and the ultimate goal.”
Aldi is the home of fresh affordable eating, proud partners of Team GB & ParalympicsGB fuelling athletes through to Paris 2024
