Kayaking: Aussies keep Roy's Game hopes alive

Andrew Roy in action at the Blue Lakes regatta in Rotorua last weekend. Photo / Jamie Troughton/ DScribe Media Services

Andrew Roy has always been a high achiever in sport.

Back in his days at Otumoetai College, he was a national surf lifesaving champion with a distinct advantage in the ski race events.

Now the 21-year-old is putting that paddling power to good use as he steps up his campaign to wear the black New Zealand shirt at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Roy has made a major financial and lifestyle commitment to achieving that goal with help from an unlikely source.

The Australian Olympic kayaking management have agreed to take the young Kiwi into their high performance set up in Perth for four months of training, conditioning and learning the sport's inner secrets.

It is an opportunity Roy says he could never hope to replicate in Tauranga.

"Over at world cup near Milan, we got to know the Australian (K2) 200 guys, Jesse Phillips, Steve Bird and Brodie Holmes, and we did a few sessions with them," Roy said. "Since I've been back I have kept in touch with them and the opportunity came up. It took some organisation and I had to get clearance from Australian Canoeing. I have access to the WAIS [West Australian Institute of Sport] and the guy running the gym is a Kiwi.

"I had to organise and pay for a boat, and find accommodation. It came about pretty quickly and it was a matter of committing to it. I am lucky with the support I have had from my parents and my primary sponsors Foundation Sports Clinic in Tauranga."

Roy says without this chance to join the world-class Australians, his Olympic dream would have stayed just that.

"I don't think I would have much of a chance if I wasn't going over there ... Jesse and Steve are consistently in the top 10 in the world, so what they have done has worked and hopefully I can learn a bit off them."

Roy's big break in kayaking came in March this year when he teamed up with Mount Maunganui's Scott Bicknell at the the ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup held over three legs in Milan (Italy), Racice (Czech Republic) and Szeged (Hungary) in May, before they competed at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Moscow in August.

"It was a big eye-opener for me and my game has definitely been lifted from last season," he said.