In the dead of winter, three very cold people sit shivering on plastic patio chairs around a miniscule fan heater.  Their surroundings are somewhat bizarre. 

In what is essentially a stone shell of a (small) building, there are dozens of canoes, long and short, red and green, light and heavy, strapped to any and every feasible fitting of the edifice.  

It is a November evening, the first true winter chill has set in, yet these three adults are huddled together in the clubhouse of Forth Canoe Club on the Union Canal, all awaiting the arrival of a 13 year-old boy.

One is his mother, who upon taking several phone-calls reassures us that her son is on his way.  His bus from school is running late and now appears to have broken down.  The second individual is the Treasurer of the club, David Cuthill, who very kindly and patiently explains to his guests the intricacies of the sport while we wait.

The third is yours truly of the In The Winning Zone team, eager to meet young Bradley Forbes-Cryans, a brilliant young Scottish canoeist, who has now resorted to getting a taxi to manoeuvre its way through the Edinburgh traffic towards the meeting spot. 

When Bradley arrives we leap straight into conversation.  There is much to discuss, because with Scottish paddlers medalling at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, and indeed Scots making up the entire GB canoe slalom squad in Beijing, canoeing is a sport on a high at present in these parts. 

And Bradley is the individual who may, quite literally, come soaring through on the crest of the wave as we approach London 2012 and beyond. 

Bradley started out in a canoe just two years ago, aged 11, attending a course at Musselburgh Lagoons with his youth club.  He enjoyed it so much that he joined Forth CC, where he first got together with David Cuthill, who doubles as his coach.

“I joined because I wanted to canoe more,” explains Bradley.  “Then David showed me canoe slalom and I enjoyed it.  There was a lot of skill involved, you had to try to be quick but you have to be careful not to hit the gates at the same time.”

A Scottish and British age-group champion in the K1 discipline for the last two years, Bradley has high hopes of a bright future in the sport.  And he has already been learning from the best in the business.  Beijing silver medallist David Florence isn’t just one of Bradley’s role models – he’s a friend who also started out at Forth CC.   There aren’t many sports where you have the opportunity to compete at events along with the top athletes.

Another canoeist who has inspired Bradley is Toby Jones, the British under 18 champion.   “I like Toby because he’s not too uptight at the start of a competition as others can be.  He will come up and talk to you and support you at events, and on the start line I just want to be able to talk to people and get everything out of my mind.  Toby just wakes up in the morning and just strolls down and does his race.  He doesn’t get too tense before a competition.”

Indeed, pre-competition nerves can get the better of many athletes, so it is comforting to see that Bradley has developed a mechanism to deal with them so early in his sporting career.  In fact, he already has his entire race technique down to a fine art.   

“I just wait for the countdown, three, two, one, then I head into the first gate and it calms me down.  Once I get up to full speed I just lower my stroke rate to save my energy, but still keeping up the same speed.  The water is unpredictable, but I’ve got quite good flexibility, so even in difficult situations I manage to pull through somehow.”

Canoe slalom is a very specialised sport.  Rocketing down the rapids, it takes the ability to combine speed and power with pinpoint precision and lightning quick reactions.  Even the slightest slip can turn a winning performance into a dead-last finish, such are the penalties imposed on errors.

So in a reactive sport like slalom, where the water can pull you off in the wrong direction at any point, does Bradley depend on his impulses, or does he pick a line and stick to it, the way a downhill mountain-biker or skier would?

“Well you can see your line, but you don’t really know what is going to happen, so it just happens naturally.  It’s more of an instinct thing.  Though you can do course inspections beforehand which give you a better chance in the actual race.

“Alpine skiing is quite a bit different,” Bradley adds, “as you are on land as opposed to water.”

Ah.  We forgot to mention that as well as being one the best in Britain in the water, Bradley is also one of the top Scots on the artificial dry ski slope at Hillend.  A member of Midlothian Snowsports Club, he has plenty of medals with a little skier on them to sit alongside his canoeing prizes.  But which does he prefer?

“It would have to be canoeing.  I just love the white water part, the big water.  It makes me nervous before I start a descent but when I finish I just want to do it again and again.

“David says that skiing and canoeing are really similar sports, especially when it comes to picking your line.  I don’t see it to be honest, but everyone else seems to!  I don’t really go for the technical side of things, I just enjoy it!”

Of course, there is no doubt that Bradley is a talented athlete.  But the vital tool in his armoury, that could one day take him to the top, is that Bradley knows talent alone is never enough.  It must be complemented with spirit, determination and an unflinching will to be your best every day. 

How do we know he knows this?  Well, despite having bucketful of canoeing and skiing trophies and medals so early in his career, it is a contest of an entirely different nature that he recalls as his most memorable sporting experience.  One which will remain with him for a long time, as an eternal reminder of what the true essence of winning is really about.

“Well my most memorable sporting experience was actually playing rugby for my school, Edinburgh Academy, where I am on a sports scholarship.  We were playing a team from Durham, and we were five tries down by half-time.  But we came back, and although we didn’t win, I was really chuffed that we came back and made them fight for it. We thought we were going to lose after the first try but I kept a positive attitude and kept my team-mates buoyant.  We felt really good going off the pitch.”

RO
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