Negotiating white-water rapids at speed, in a race against the clock, is where Luuka Jones is in her element.
The two-time Olympian in canoe slalom loves the “amazing feeling” of power when she explodes out of gates with speed behind her.
She’s constantly looking for the fastest water, searching for lines that will get her from the top of the course to the bottom in the quickest time.
Sound simple? It’s not. As well as speed she needs efficiency and accuracy, to navigate around poles without losing too much time.
“You’re also looking to use the least amount of space. Sometimes when you’re going around a pole, your head with be two centimetres away, because you need to have the shortest line possible,” Jones says.
On race day, there’s no dress rehearsal, no chance to scrutinize the course in a practice run. The moment you cross the start line is the first time you’ll experienced the race course.
But Jones always has a plan - she studies imagery of the course, so she knows the lines she wants to pursue and envisages how her boat will react. Still, once you’re out there, “you just have to do your best”.
“You have to train every kind of technique, so that you’re prepared for whatever comes your way,” she says. Experience helps – knowing how both boat and body will react and what needs to be doing to compensate. “You need to have a tool kit essentially that you can draw on in certain situations to make sure you move the fastest you can.”
At an upstream gate, she knows she can either play it safe, or be as aggressive. And with 13 years of competitive experience, she knows which techniques are best applied in either situation.
Speed also comes in thinking quickly on your feet (or, in a paddler’s case, sitting down). If you make an error, you have to react fast. “If you make a mistake at the beginning of the course, you have to do quite a lot of work, and make quite a lot of split decisions to get you gradually into the right place,” she says. Composure is critical.
“Sometimes you have to slow down a little bit to use the white water, or to be accurate coming into the gate. But as soon as you’re through it, you have to pick up the boat speed and explode out of it.”
It may not seem obvious, but Jones needs leg power to push her through the course. “When you’re going back up the course, you’re leaning back, and so your lower body is doing a lot of work.”
She does a lot of gym work to build core strength, and resistance training, like putting a cone on the bottom of her canoe. She needs endurance to keep the boat moving constantly – loss of momentum equals loss of speed.
Growing up next door to a kayak adventure park, Jones has picked up a raft of virtues from canoeing which have filtered into other aspects of her life. In everything she does, she works on “applying myself, thinking more critically, being efficient, and making everything count.”
She also believes that life balance is crucial to success. She juggles training and competing with studying towards a Bachelor of Business Administration.
Competing for her country gives Jones a huge sense of pride. Knowing that she’s inspiring others - not only in sport but in life – is, she says, “the coolest thing.”