Mike Dawson came to inspire the Waonui students on Wednesday this week.

We were very lucky to have Mike Dawson visit our school earlier this week. He represents New Zealand in Men's Kayak K1 - slalom kayaking. Mike is set to represent New Zealand for the 3rd time at an Olympics in Tokyo next year.

Mike was born in Tauranga in 1986. He loved kayaking from his first time, enjoying the feeling of the water and the freedom. He quickly decided that he wanted to be a professional kayaker. 

Mike leapt into all different types of kayaking, and throughout his career he continued exploring and achieving in a variety of disciplines such as freeriding (travelling white water rivers and doing tricks), creeking (going down low-volume white water rivers) and extreme racing (paddling down difficult natural white water rivers, including waterfalls and dangerous rapids), as well as slalom racing. 

However, canoe slalom was always one of his main focuses, and he began his journey towards the Olympic Games at just 13 when he began racing slalom. Mike made his first canoe slalom national team when he was 15. 

Mike had his sights set on competing in slalom at the Olympic Games. He just missed out on a spot in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. This made him determined to try even harder, and in 2011 he managed to secure a spot for the London 2012 Olympic Games, becoming the fourth New Zealander ever to compete in Olympic canoe slalom.

Mike made it to his second Olympic Games in Rio 2016, and showed the benefits of his experience and continued hard work and improvement by racing fast and accurately to make his first Olympic final.

While Mike has achieved success in multiple sports, gaining world titles and competition prizes, he maintains that for him, kayaking and slalom are about doing what he loves. 

“My biggest goal is to do what I love and enjoy it, and see where that takes me,” he says. “If I get paid it’s a bonus, but I would still be doing it cash or no cash!” 

All the children enjoyed hearing his presentation and asked some very insightful questions at the end. Pranisha had the privilege of being dressed in his olympic gear and several children received prizes for asking or answering questions. What a great start to our day!

Excerpt from a Waonui student:

On Wednesday we learnt about Kayaking/Slalom racing from Olympian, Mike Dawson. One interesting thing I found out is that there are 11000 athletes that go to the Olympics. We loved hearing about Mike’s experience at the Olympics and hearing about what inspires and motivates him to do the sport.

By Thomas