“The hardest thing was coming back from Worlds and racing at Western Canada Games. After Western’s I broke my left hand and couldn’t paddle or go to Nationals. It was kind of hard because it felt like I got up to making Junior World’s and it felt like dropped down for a bit after that. Back to paddling being away for school, doing minor winter training and just being slower than a lot of the other guys, I just felt like ever since I broke it, I just set myself back. I’ve been trying really slowly to build up, I’m definitely coming back to where I used to be, I’ve build up a bad mentality and it’s been really hard to get back.
I never really thought I was falling behind until I came back and all of the sudden I went to national team trials and I just remember during the first 500m of my 1000m race, I was thinking I was going to die, like seeing stars, I just never been in that situation in my life and experiencing that right after being considered a fairly speedy guy at the time was really hard, I did not realize that I’m not quite as in shape because I’ve missed out on all the paddling and training.
It’s easy to be like an underdog and try to comeback but as soon as you hit a point where you feel like you are really good then fall back down to that point where you were at before, it just hits you really hard, that’s the hardest thing to go over but I feel like every athlete really has to deal with a form of adversity, you can’t really be the best if you are not able to be beat and come back from it. I feel like that’s a big thing especially in paddling because it’s a big head game especially in the 1000m, a lot of guys blast off the line and some people take that as ‘I’m going to lose the race right off the start line’ and just quit, and then some of the guys will be really mentally tough and have a huge finish, constant throughout the whole race and those are the guys that have consistency.” – Gavin Jaeger-Freeborn, Canadian Canoer. (4/4)
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