Canoe star Adam Burgess proud despite missing out on Tokyo medal

Stoke’s canoe slalom star has had plenty of time to contemplate his Olympic debut – first being selected to Team GB’s Tokyo 2020 squad in October 2019, more than 650 days ago – and he gave it everything he had at the Kasai Canoe Slalom Centre.

Having qualified in eighth for the ten-man final earlier on Monday, Burgess went off third in the showpiece and laid down a marker as he crossed the line in 103.86 seconds, incurring no time penalties.

For a while, he sat in the medal positions but was eventually pushed into fourth and finished just 0.16s behind bronze medallist Sideris Tasiadis of Germany and 5.61s behind the winner, Benjamin Savsek of Slovenia.

“It was just a fight from top to bottom,” explained Burgess. “I’m proud – I think I did a good job to hold the run together in the final and put something down on what is a really difficult course.

“I made the mistakes early on and it was getting more and more physical, harder and harder to hold it all together. Not quite good enough in the end.

“It was such a hard course out there – it wasn’t the worst one I’ve ever done but I had a feeling I was going to miss out.

“I was happy with my semi-final performance. I knew I’d had a really good top half and I’d seen the way the event had gone before me, so I backed off a little bit to make sure I got the job done. That’s where a few mistakes crept in and made it close.

“I wanted the early start in the final because it’s less pressure there, less to think about and hear what times are going down. No regrets about the semis at all.”

While the huge period between first being selected for his Olympic debut and finally making his bow in Tokyo could have been frustrating, Burgess is adamant he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“I think it’s an advantage the way Team GB select, selecting early means we can focus on it – just one peak,” the 29-year-old said.

“There was the postponement but I tend to stay positive and from the word go I thought ‘let’s use this one year better than anyone else’.

“I was grateful to have the dates in my diary to have something to work towards. The last 18 months has been difficult for all of us, I’m lucky I’ve had the Olympic Games in my calendar.”

The stark reality of these bubbled Olympic Games means Burgess flies back home to the UK on Wednesday, without the opportunity to support Team GB’s other canoe slalom stars in person.

“It’s a shame I don’t get to stay and support my teammates – hopefully we’ve got some medals coming but I’ll try to watch that with our teammates back at home in London,” he added.

“I’m looking forward to seeing them as well.”

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