By Corran Addison
Corran Addison is a regular contributor to the Paddler magazine and owns Soul Waterman
The long road
So you think you have what it takes to be a champion? To identify your goals and to see them through? Getting to the top is much more than just mastering your craft; it’s also about the hardships surrounding and contributing to preventing you from reaching that goal. While my story is not unique, and my hardships were undoubtedly less than many, some of the details of my story are certainly unusual, and in hindsight, entertaining.
The great writer Eli Khamarov once said, “Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn’t commit.” But does this apply if that poverty was self-inflicted?
My parents were by no means wealthy, but we wanted for nothing as kids. My parents took us paddling, cycling, on extended trips and adventures at will. This access to money made it possible for me to fall in love with kayaking: we were able to afford the equipment and costs that go along with it. Unlike soccer, where 22 people share one ball, kayaking is, by comparison, a relatively expensive sport.
When I slowly worked my way into abject poverty to train for the Olympics, it was a conscious decision. Working took away from my ability to be focused on training, and as a late starter to slalom at a ‘top-level’, I needed to be very focused. Train. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
Of course, I didn’t just end up poor overnight. I was working at Perception kayaks in Easley, South Carolina as a designer. As my focus became more acute on training, I realized I was in the wrong place – the top US paddlers were either in Washington DC or at the Nantahala in North Carolina, so I packed up and moved to Bryson City, NC, camping and training. I was fortunate enough to be friends with Chris Spellius, who lived there, and he eventually gave me a room at his place.
Chris was once an aspiring Olympic athlete himself. While he is better known for his accomplishments as a whitewater paddler from the ‘80s and ‘90s, he trained with the likes of Gregg Barton in K1 sprint. He could identify with my commitment, and he’d tell me the stories of how he’d go hungry and the clever ways he had to find food.
The problem is that it was a slog to the river to train, and without a car, it meant I was always reliant on other athletes, most of which lived closer to the river. As such, I’d miss sessions regularly, and after a few months at Chris’s place, I moved back into my tent at the river.
The more I trained, the hungrier I became. I was making no money, save for a few design projects for the likes of Wilderness Systems that paid here and there, and eventually, my coach Fritz Haller brought me home with him one day for a meal. His wife was alarmed at how much weight I’d lost and insisted that I move in, sleep in a real bed, and eat with them.
1992 Olympics
Here now was stability, a warm place to live, and regular food and a ride to the river with my coach. I trained like this for months, until suddenly the news broke; South Africa would be allowed back into the 1992 Olympics for the first time in over 20 years (previously excluded due to apartheid).
Fritz was clear. There was almost no chance I’d be given a spot on the US team. Firstly, I probably would not be fast enough by the 1991 team trials where the 1992 team was selected. Secondly, even if I sneaked in a great run and made the top three without US citizenship, I was not eligible. He insisted that I reach out to Canoeing South Africa and indicate my intent to return to South Africa to make the national team.
This was met unfavourably by the SA Canoeing. In their eyes, I was an American, having emigrated from South Africa at the height of the civil unrest in the mid-1980s to avoid military conscription into an army hell-bent on supporting the apartheid regime. I was unwelcome and told so clearly. Don’t come here! We don’t care how fast you are!
I had no money to buy tickets to South Africa for myself or my wife Christine to boot. So Fritz jumped in again and took up a collection amongst friends and paddlers and managed to collect a few hundred dollars. A far cry from what was needed, but a start. Wilderness Systems gave me another boat to design, and my father contributed the rest.
We managed to convince a friend to drive us to NYC, where the flight left from and boarded the flight with my slalom boat and paddling gear, utterly destitute. We slept under the stairs in Heathrow airport for two days waiting for our connection, eating crackers and ketchup swiped off restaurant tables.
Finally, we landed in South Africa, and my father met me with good news. A friend, Wayne Nichol, had a house in Weenen in Natal that was the next town over from Escort – the primary training ground for South Africa’s small slalom community. SA Canoeing had also hired the services of 1972 Olympic Silver Medalist Norbert Sattler to train us, and so I was set.
I had, however, brought the same problem with me from the Nantahala. Not having a car, and living 30km from the training site, each morning, I had to hitchhike to Escort, walk a few km to the river, train, sleep under the trees in the midday sun, do the afternoon training session, and then hitchhike home.
As I’d stand on the side of the road, I’d remember the words from Carli Lloyd when she said, “If you have a dream, it’s definitely achievable through hard work, dedication and sacrifice of everything.” I’d remind myself of this every frustrating morning and every hungry lunch.
Extreme Equipment
Wayne had a budding company, Extreme Equipment, that was starting to produce hard-to-get paddling gear in South Africa, and I brought with me my expertise and knowledge of what was being made in the USA and Europe. We’d work evenings on designs and ideas, and in the day, while I was off training, he’d sew the gear for sale, and I’d make a small amount of the money from the sales so I could begin to eat regularly.
Norbert was a godsend. He encouraged me incessantly. “You are as good as any paddler in the world”, he’d tell me. “You need to get fitter and stronger to maintain your speed for all 25 gates.” We’d do extra sessions when the other paddlers had left, and he’d drive me home after some workouts to lift weights in Weenen. I got stronger. I got fitter. I got faster and more consistent.
Meanwhile, the Austrian team was in South Africa training for the winter. Their training program was paid for by their federation and sponsors like Red Bull. We got to train with them as Norbert knew them well, and this was motivating as I progressively closed the speed gap.
We should never forget where we were: civil war-torn South Africa. Weenen is in the heart of Zululand, and on top of the war against the oppressive white regime, there was also strife between the Inkhata of the Zulu and the ANC of the Xhosa. It was open war as these two factions tore into each other with vigour as it became apparent that the white nationalist government was going to topple.
The white police were more than happy to stand by and watch them tear at each other. “We’re waiting for something to happen,” said one smiling white policeman as he sat idly in his patrol wagon. A man named Mtembu, who identified himself as a leader of the Inkhata warriors, said, “If I let my men loose, they will kill a lot of residents because a lot of them (the warriors) are just children.”
And this was where I had chosen to live and train for the Olympics?
gunfire
One night, as we slept, we were awoken to the sound of gunfire. Wayne was in Durban buying sewing supplies, so I was alone with Christine. After a minute, a stray round came through the open window and smacked into the wall above our bed. I pushed Christine out of bed, told her to get under it, grabbed the shotgun, and crawled on my belly through the door and to the yard fence.
Behind the neighbour’s wall was a man with an AK47. He’d poke the gun above the wall without exposing his head and strafe the entire area in front of him. Hiding behind a cattle tough was another man armed with a pistol. He’d raise the pistol in turn and fire back, also without raising his head. It would have been comical if it wasn’t so dangerous!
Ra-ta-ta-ta-tat. Bang. Bang. Ra-ta-ta-ta-tat. Bang. Bang.
Eventually, they both ran out of ammunition and ran away from each other. I got up and went back to bed; I had an early workout coming up.
Land Rover
The good news was that Extreme Equipment started to make some money, and I decided to splurge. I bought an old Land Rover with no doors, no windshield, no first or fourth gear and no reverse. It had no driver seat, but it did have a passenger seat. I strapped a cooler down as my driving seat, and now I had transport. I could train in both Escort on the mZimkulu and set up some gates on the Tugela river nearby to train on pushier water.
This dilapidated Land Rover was a godsend, despite requiring clever calculation whenever driving it. Always park in a way that allows you to leave in second gear and never need reverse!
One evening, after a training session, driving up the bumpy dirt road, off in the distance in the twilight, I saw two cars stopped in the middle of the road, effectively blocking the way. It looked suspiciously like a carjacking to me. I stopped. I had a .38 pistol in the cooler, but there was a dozen of them and most likely armed with AK47s. Besides making a 200km detour by turning around, for which I hadn’t the petrol or the money to buy petrol, this was the only way back to Weenen. Proceed, or turn around and sleep next to the car in the grass back down at the river, hungry, without cover, waiting for the morning?
I left the gun in the cooler, drove up to the cars, and with a giant smile, jumped out and asked if they needed any help. I offered to give anyone a ride that needed it or a tow if my car would do it. I had no money (the way I was dressed), and my car was also not worth anything. Whether it was my chirpy attitude or that there was nothing to be gained from robbing me, they pushed a car back and let me through.
Christine was, of course, horrified, and we both agreed that it was time for her to leave. She’d return to Brussels, get a job and make some money so I could continue to train, and then when getting to Europe, have a little money to do the world cup.
Tops Needle
Norbert Sattler set up a challenging course for the team trials on a rapid called Tops Needle on the umGeni river. It was so hard that SA Canoeing decided that the women and juniors would start the race at gate 10, avoiding the ‘must make’ moves at the top. Only a handful of us completed the entire course without missing gates, and I won the race by 22 seconds (with a five-second penalty for a touch).
But team selection was not based on results. Your result indicated your speed, but in the end, the team was chosen by a council. They did not want me on the team, period. I was ‘an American’ to them. After this long road, the hard training, the dedication and the sacrifice, I was about to miss out on making the Olympic team, not because I was not fast enough, but because other people didn’t want me on it.
But Norbert fought for me. He made the case that we had three spots at the Olympics. I was the fastest paddler and was SA’s only hope at a good result. The other two, Aleck Rennie and Wade Harrison, would represent the paddlers who had never left South Africa. I was given ‘third spot’ on the team and had my place in the Olympics!
on my way to the Olympics
I could go on about hitchhiking from event to event across Europe, sleeping in toilets to escape the rain, and raiding the food bins of restaurants to eat, but none of it mattered. I had made it to the world cup series and was on my way to the Olympics. Everything else was irrelevant.
As I reflect on this, I am heartened by the words of astronaut Kalpana Chawla who said, “The path from dreams to success does exist. May you have the vision to find it, the courage to get on it, and the perseverance to follow it.”
