KEY POINTS:
"Next time," said Olympic icon Ian Ferguson, hugging son Steven after his eighth place in the K1-500m final at Shunyi last night meant the younger Ferguson is yet to garner one of what his famous father has five of: Olympic medals.
The Fergusons are already looking ahead to
London 2012 and, while he might have been feeding the fishes after Friday's debilitating effort in the K2-1000m event, Steven Ferguson wasn't ruing the effort last night.
Steven put so much into the race he threw up after a gargantuan effort in Friday's double with Mike Walker and, according to Ferguson senior, had trouble walking across the pontoon to get back in the boat after the race.
It seemed as if the double might have taken too much out of him with crack paddlers like Britain's Tim Brabants and defending Olympic champion Adam van Koeverden lined up against him in the K1-500m the very next day.
But the Ferguson family are made of stern stuff and Steven was last night adamant the double hadn't hurt his chances and joked that he might even beat his father by going to six Olympic Games.
Ferguson got away to a slow start but "bided my time until about halfway and then caught up a fair bit. Then when I wanted to really get going about 100m out I got jelly arms again.
"I don't know what happened at the start. Maybe I did have a bit of the edge taken off me yesterday but I felt good in the warm-up and good at the start. I just don't know."
In any case, Ferguson said, he had to paddle in the K2-1000m as that was the boat he qualified. Once qualified, he could enter another race but he had to race the K2.
"I guess I could have qualified the K1-500m later and just done that," he said. "But this is my first Olympics [in kayaking], it's a big learning curve for me and I got into a K1 final and I gave it everything I had. You've got to be happy with that. We were also sixth in the world in the K2-1000m and that's phenomenal.
"I can go away now and work on it and I know what I have to work on to beat these guys."
Ferguson said he was intending to gain selection for London and said he had plenty of time yet when it came to medals.
"Dad was 40 when he got his last medal and 32 when he got his first. I am 28 now so there's plenty of time. I can now give this everything I have over the next four years."
Both Fergusons talked about the depth of talent emerging in the sport in New Zealand - welcome news after it dipped following the famous Ferguson-MacDonald era - and that there are plans for more paddlers and crews to make the step-up to international paddling.
Among the plans are the qualification of a women's K4 as more women emerge to follow the lead of Erin Taylor, the first New Zealand woman to paddle at an Olympic regatta.
