Canoeing-Dane Poulsen defies odds in search of perfect Olympic swansong

PARIS : When Beijing silver medallist Rene Holten Poulsen lost his funding from the Danish Canoe Federation two years ago, many expected that to be it for the Danish paddler.
Instead, he battled on, spending his retirement fund and raising funds to ensure his kayak swansong would be at the Paris Olympics. 
The 35-year-old defied the odds, first qualifying for Paris and then making it to Saturday’s single kayak 1,000-metre semi-finals in one of the great shows of resilience at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, where he is hoping to bow out with a bang. 
“Regardless of the result, finishing with the perfect race would be a dream come true,” he said. 
Poulsen says he does not know why he was dropped from the Danish team, only that they felt that they could not develop him any more. Needless to say, he did not agree with that assessment, and decided to carry on by himself. 
“I’m a little bit of a stubborn guy, so I was like, ‘They don’t get to decide when I retire, or how I retire’,” he said, and while he is proud of his stubbornness, it has come at a cost. 
“My savings are gone. I was fortunate enough that I had really good results early in my career, and I saved a lot to retire from, but now I don’t have anything to retire from – it’s gone now entirely,” Poulsen said. 
A well-known figure in Denmark, he combined his savings with sponsorship and an online fundraising campaign to get him to Paris. 
The kayak specialist has always done things a little differently, investing his bonus for the Beijing silver medal in a PR man who helped him to build up his profile in Denmark, which resulted in more sponsorship and opportunities such as participating in a televised celebrity dance competition there. 
FINANCIAL SUPPORT
After a disappointing sixth position at the Rio Games and missing out on qualifying for Tokyo, his Olympic story looked to be over but after his funding was cut he continued training on his own without a coach and managed to qualify for Paris, which resulted in some of his financial support being restored ahead of the Games. 
“They (Team Denmark) supported me the last three months, and then one month after the Olympics like everyone else, so the last four months were a little bit more comfortable, or less uncomfortable,” Pouslen said with a wry smile.
“Just getting here, no coach, no support, no experts, nothing other than what I know myself, and learning entirely new territories like from a cycling coach about high altitude training, which is something I started doing after I was kicked out, I learned a lot.”
Paris will be the last Olympics for Poulsen and he intends to pivot to coaching and motivational speaking once the Games end, but before that is one last shot at an Olympic medal, however unlikely that might be. 
Racing in the first of two semi-finals on Saturday, he is up against Olympic champion Balint Kopasz and Australia’s Tom Green, both of whom are expected to win medals. 
“I mean, let’s call it the semi-final of death – both of the semis are really hard but this one, it’s just completely bonkers, and I don’t have much to lose,” he said. 
“(I want to) go out on my own terms. You know, when you leave the sport, you can have medals, and I’ve got tons of medals, but you want to leave the sport happy – it doesn’t matter if you’re Olympic champion… you want to leave the sport, retire from the sport, move on, happy and satisfied with what you did.”