No doubts for Florence as he sets sights on Tokyo

TEAM GB – Three Olympic silver medals would be job done for most people. But David Florence isn’t most people.

For him, it’s a case of unfinished business, and gold at Tokyo 2020 is in his sights – but it all could have been a very different story.

Long before picking up his canoe slalom medal at Beijing 2008, Florence had always thought that would be his sporting days done and dusted.

Perhaps it would be time for a ‘proper’ career, even submitting an application to become an astronaut – eventually losing out to a certain Tim Peake.

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But the Olympic bug had got him and canoeing became that career, going on to add two medals to his haul in London and Rio alongside the now-retired Richard Hounslow, as well as three world titles across both C1 and C2 disciplines.

And now he has committed to Olympic cycle number four, but while he insists that’s not because of his missing gold, there’s no denying it would be the icing on the cake.

“It actually crossed my mind to call it a day after Beijing, but then I seem to have got pretty old and I’m still doing it,” he said.

“I was a slightly late starter in the sport, a long way off the other guys my age, and I just wanted to be good enough to go to the Olympic Games.

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