An Interview with Adam van Koeverden

When Adam van Koeverden finished eighth in his first kayak race at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, he could have packed it in. Instead, in a display of grit and tenacity, he gathered himself and sped to a silver medal in the 500m.

"I learned that I could bounce back, and I learned that I could be proud for a friend's victory and feel good about a race that wasn't perfect," van Koeverden explains. "I learned to be thankful for the great races I've had, and not let bad ones get in the way of having great ones in the future."

With the 2009 World Cup season underway, van Koeverden is looking to build on his past successes in the run up to the world championships this fall in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

"My goal never changes really.  When I line up to race, I want to do my best," says van Koeverden, via email from Sweden, where he is competing on the World Cup circuit. "It might sound cheesy, but I like cheese and I like keeping it simple. I want to win races."

Winning is exactly what he's doing: van Koeverden claimed gold in the 1000m in the first World Cup race of the season in the Czech Republic. Although van Koeverden says European countries tend to love their amateur sports more than the typical hockey-baseball-football-lovin' Canuck, it isn't exactly pandemonium for the sprint kayakers.

"Oh, the fans! They are crazy over here!" says van Koeverden. "No, it's not. I wish I could say that. Most of the races we go to are in-the-middle-of-nowhere, so we don't expect to see thousands of fans. That said, we are going to Hungary in a few weeks, where canoe-kayak is akin to our hockey and we can expect 10,000 to 20,000 or so in the stands. It gets pretty loud; there are usually TV helicopters going over the races. So, that's a different experience to dead silence."

Born and raised in Oakville, Ontario, van Koeverden was introduced kayaking by none other than his mother.

"I was sitting around the house, as I used to do every day, and she asked me if I wanted to check out the canoe club and I said sure," says van Koeverden. "I kept with it because it was challenging, and because I was a lousy athlete in school, and I wanted to be the best at my school at something. Finding a spot that nobody else at my school did, made short work of that goal, and I just kept making new ones."

Van Koeverden enlisted with the venerable Burloak Canoe Club and the rest is history. A gold and a bronze medal in Athens at the 2004 Olympic Games, gold in the 2007 world championships and van Koeverden was named flag bearer for the 2008 Games. The young paddling star, now living in Toronto, has also made the charitable organization Right To Play an important part of his life.

"I get so much from the sport; my livelihood is sport," van Koeverden explains. "I'll never be able to give back to sport as much as it has provided me with. But Right To Play helps ensure that the most disadvantaged youth in the world experience sport and play as a right and not a privilege. Every kid should be able to take fun for granted, and that's what RTP does best."

Follow Adam van Koeverden online at his blog www.vankayak.com. For more information on Right To Play, go to www.righttoplay.com.