Eoin Rheinisch is an Irish K1 Canoeist from Leixlip, Co Kildare. His 4th place finish in the 2008 Beijing Olympics makes it the best ever achievement by an Irish athlete in this event. In addition to being a full time athlete, he has also been appointed in 2009 to assist the Westmeath Senior Footballers with their physical preparation.

I arrive at the venue 2 and a half hours before my 1st race run. I get changed and I do a half an hour of a pre warm up. This involves 10 minutes of gradually increasing intensity until my body is warm enough to do some stroke drills. Once completed I do 2 X 50 second flat out bursts on the control gates to kick-start my anaerobic system. After this I paddle around for a few more minutes to recover before doing some specific stretches.

I get changed and meet my coach to “walk” the racecourse. No actual practise is allowed on the gate combination set for the race. Athletes and coaches pick their lines from the bank almost like a puzzle, it is a very tactical process involving a large amount of visualization.

Following this I take a few minutes to myself alone to get myself in the correct state of mind and run through the course in my head. I get changed in to my gear 20 minutes before my race run. And do a few  10-second sprints and some more stroke drills before going to the start line.

At the age of 17 I won the Junior British Open International race. I was a surprise winner and it is a very happy memory of mine.

Hitting a rock during training and sinking in front of all my competitors!

Probably a fat slob! Ah no, only joking. That’s a difficult question, I cant imagine my life without sport.