Kayaking is a loved and popular sport for our small river town. Sophomore Finn Blackburn took up an interest in kayaking during his sixth grade year after being in a five week program during his gym class. Some years later, and after much practice, hard work, and dedication, Blackburn painted the picture of what it meant to him to be invited to try out for the olympic team, through voicing his thoughts on the matter.
“Honestly I did not expect anything to come of it, I thought it would be like a last place kind of deal, but that I would get a lot better. But, it was a big honor,” Blackburn said.
In a very short time, kayaking became a regular activity for him. Blackbun’s talents and skills quickly became noticeably recognized. When asked about his training routine and preparations for competition, Blackburn explained that he’s been training for the past four months in our local downtown area for about four to five days throughout the week. This kind of time and effort is clearly through his skill and improvement, which has led to honors and successes.
Through his long weekly practices, Blackburn mainly focused on going through the gates, paddling down the frigid river, and fighting against the rushing current to make it back up the stream. Of course with any sport comes many challenges and crucial moments to reflect on later throughout your career.
Blackburn stated, “Big challenges I’ve faced are–it’s hard that you’ve got to keep in a certain mindset to keep progressing in kayaking otherwise you just plateau.”
He added that kayaking can be very challenging mentally and when exposed, the mental game can have a large impact on your kayaking career. Mental fitness is something that can be so detrimental to an activity such as kayaking. Blackburn thinks that if you don’t consistently keep a proper mindset about kayaking, your progression will slow. This is definitely the right mindset to have, especially for kayaking. This kind of mindset not only paves the way to your success as an athlete, but also allows you to grow and develop as an individual as well.
Blackburn explained that he’s been working on getting the tail of his boat beneath the water to go around upstream gates swifter and more efficiently. Even noticing and pursuing improvement on small alterations can lead to so much more improvement on the growth continuum of becoming a good kayaker. Kayaking needs a lot of time and effort to truly notice improvement, and with that, it can be more challenging to maintain this practice and improvement with everything that life brings. To be this successful, Blackburn has had to prioritize kayaking over other extracurricular activities.
“It’s pretty difficult, but it’s just a grind,” Blackburn said.
Trials and different experiences within being a kayaker brings many memories and teachable moments. An experience through Blackburn’s kayaking journey that seemed to stand out to him was kayaking in Montgomery, Alabama when he was able to qualify for Junior Worlds. This means that he was good enough to be invited to compete in the 2024 ICF Junior and U23 Canoe Slalom World Championships in Lilptovsky Mikulas, Slovakia on July 2-7. Every achievement adds to the stepping stones of a successful kayaking career, and for Blackburn, this happened to be a pretty important one.
Blackburn added that he’s been inspired in his kayaking journey by teacher Josh Bechtal and Josh Oberleas. Positive role models are always a very good key to improving in your sport, and in this case, becoming a very successful kayaker. Blackburn’s advice to any students and or anyone in general thinking about pursuing kayaking is just to take a risk and go for it. Blackburn thinks that it’s a great time, and there’s nothing to lose from going out and trying.
When pushed about future goals and aspirations to furthering his kayaking career, Blackburn mentioned that qualifying for Senior Worlds and running a waterfall are definitely on the list of goals and aspirations. Kayaking is a very intriguing sport and it’s so great to see local students experiencing success from all their hard work, time, and effort.
