Canoeing: Fouhy's family silver

By EUGENE BINGHAM in Athens

In the scheme of the Olympics, how could there be disappointment in silver? It is an exalted position, bettered only by gold.

But it bit Ben Fouhy hard last night, taking in all that he had been through to get to Athens and come second in the K1 1000m final.

On top of that, he and Steven Ferguson had finished eighth in the K2 1000m, an event in which they had hoped to win a medal. Immediately afterwards, they spoke the sound-bite answers about being proud, having done their best - all things which are undoubtedly true, and rightly so.

But about half an hour after the race, Fouhy shared a little of what it is like to have firmly targeted gold and to have come up one short.

"I'm not going to try and manufacture a whole lot of smiles and words for you," he said. "I'm stoked. I'll absorb it and share that with my family and people who have supported me. It's just tough."

Since winning the world championships last year, he had been preparing and training with the sole focus being number one, and there had been a lot of sacrifices.

"It's a real long time and I feel like I lost perception, I've lost touch. You lose reality a little bit because you're so focused. I'm pretty keen to snap out of that for a while.

"I've become really selfish, everything I've done has been totally related to training my very, very hardest.

"You turn into a bit of a prick. I'm looking forward to doing my share of the chores."

They are sentiments that may be hard to understand. Fouhy, after all, will leave Athens with a medal, something that 145 other New Zealand team members are not able to say. He was better than every K1 1000m paddler in the world, except for one.

For some, silver is supreme. The Italian K2 1000m crew who finished second in the race in which Fouhy and Ferguson were eighth were a study in the contrast that sport can offer. While Fouhy was subdued and quiet in the acceptance of his silver, the Italians were ecstatic, leaping into the water and gushing with joy about their unexpected placing.

At the elite level of sport, setting goals and expectations is paramount. And sometimes, when the goal is not achieved, albeit by a few seconds, it hurts.

Fouhy's expectations were raised last year when he won the world championship during his first serious season in the sport.

"Last year I couldn't do anything wrong. I was really on the back foot and every time I made a final it was a success and then to get a medal, even if it was a bronze, it was like, shit, because people just don't do that [in their first season]."

After winning the world title, he became determined and hungry for gold, and trained much harder, with new expectations of himself, and the pressure of expectation from others too.

But in winning last year, Fouhy had given his rivals a wake-up call. In Norway, Eirik Veraas Larsen became more determined than ever to win at Athens.

Last night, Larsen achieved that. Fouhy did not lose. He won silver.