Interview with Australia Para Canoe Paralympian Dylan Littlehales

we've been lucky enough to seal some downtime with one of Australia's gold medal hopes for the upcoming Paris games Dylan first of all thanks for taking time out of your preparation to spend some time with r you must be getting excited now mate tell me how'd you feel when you found out you qualified for Paris um yeah it was a tremendous feeling coming out of um the World Championships to have that ticked off um through this cycle was a bit more expected that I'd qualify for the next games unlike in the past so it was just good to be able to tick that off and move on to the next thing improving as you as you get older man getting a bit more confidence and and building your strength and yeah so um I think K and you coming to your Peak around 25 to your early 30 so I'm still coming in before that um still on the uprise we're still picking up different things here and there every year so hopefully we just keep going with it sounds good sounds good how I feel this time around compared to learning you'd make kids a boot in in Rio in 2016 that feel H in the Debo back in Rio that was definitely a bit of a shock there wasn't too many people that thought I was going to make it coming into that final in juberg Hungary in 2016 the last chance qualifiers managed to scrape in by 0. one of a second so um yeah to be a to scrape in there and be had to get that experience from the first parak canoe par Olympic event um was huge coming into Tokyo and now into Paris yeah building building up the the strength a bit of a bit of a py that at that point a little bit unexpected maybe knocked out a few of the the guys who are probably more expectant to to getting there yeah well I think I was I was the youngest one in the K 3 200 met by 7 years I believe or might have been seven years across the whole of parak Cano but so try not to let um that get to your head too much got to keep progressing further and further cuz it's one thing to be the youngest is the next thing to be the best so um yeah just trying to progress through the career and we're slowly ticking along in thata trajectory fantastic so the par Olympics are unique um in the sense that athletes all comp they competing classifications based on their Define impairments um can you explain a little about your event the parak canoe uh the parako event and the K3 classification yeah so essentially um there's three classes across parako which is k1 K2 and K3 essentially it's just different levels of impairment K1 you're essentially just using your arms you got a core impairment and a leg impairment K2 you're just using your upper body um essentially you got no leg drive so typically a double amput and then K3 is um one leg impairment so either a single amput or somebody with a damaged lower limb that's interesting I hadn't I hadn't um really considered the the definition of the impairments before um I started to take a little bit more interest in what you did and um learning a little bit more about it so it's really interesting yeah um so why did you choose this sport um what was it all about for you so I grew up just playing um Field Sports are fun soccer touch footy Mom and Dad wouldn't let me get into rugby with their knee that I've got no ACL so that makes it a bit hard um my mom too I didn't have the the uh impairment but uh it was just Mom was frightened yeah basically yeah but then as I progressed I got into swimming as well because of the hydrotherapy benefits of how good it was for rehab and the right leg and then that slowly progressed into becoming a swimmer um which I was looking to do after the 2012 games watching that overnight and then 2014 came around and perak Cano actually became a par Olympic event and it's a sport that my Uncle Mike dreu was actually the head coach of the Olympic team back then so he used to take me and my brother out down we'll say River Rapids um when we're like 9 10 years old when we'd go down and visit for Christmas and Easter and so it sort of seemed like the good step to take to go into Flat Water Cano and just give it a try considering a VOA kite Club was starting up around the same time um then got he helped us get my first boat then started up with the club and got put on the Rio long list a couple of months later and kept progressing where about for the rapids oh down at jenong yeah okay down the sou Coast yeah I'd say barely moving waterm than Rapids but for a 10-year-old it was Rapids that's um well you made the right choice but looks of things like it seems like the right career choice um looking at all your achievements I spent some time on your website and and watching a few of the videos there you've seem to do pretty well for yourself over the last eight to 10 years um what's been your highlight in the in the career today uh definitely have to be the gold medal at the 2023 World Championships we're underway looks like little house from Australia has got out really fast there he is there Dyan little house from Australia young is also going Dyan little I think orz from Algeria it's a race between and Jonathan Young in the middle coming through the man from Great Britain Algeria and Great Britain I think it's going to be Australia whoa Dylan little HS got there just oh that was very close I don't even think I want to call that one look how excited Dylan little house as I mentioned he's waited a long time for this he will be pretty pumped he's rocking that mustache he's been working on aot takes a lot of pride in it very happy with it uh when I won my first medal back in 2018 bronze medal I didn't really feel too much getting up on the podium like I was like oh that was a bit of a anti-climax but then winning the um gold medal in gburg after all that time and um having all the family back home cheering along and I think the biggest point was being out to step on top of that Podium while the national anthem played I actually had the silver medalist Johnny say mate don't cry don't let them see you cry but no it was a very emotional Day winners want to win at the end of the day I suppose so getting getting onto the podium be one thing but it would sort of drive you to achieve and and sort of Hit the next hit the next Target and goal yep what about your challenges like getting to this point in your career kind of been easy like how do you overcome low points because there would be some I'd imagine and how do you stay focused on the big picture um I'd say I've got a good support circle around which really helps I know when you get a bit isolated sometimes it makes all the problem seem a little bit bigger but having the family and friends around to go home to at the end of the day make makes you realize that sport isn't the end of the world if you're had a bad session or if you're in a bit of a rut or you didn't you didn't um race well at the recent regetta but yes I'd say a great support Circle and then just really I've been enjoying what I've been doing not too many people get to go out and paddle around a lake for their job and then fly off to Europe and train for a month and then go to Germany to compete it would be uh very exciting stuff just setting around on that um some do you have someone specific like a hero or role model or or someone you go to more often for guidance not typically um maybe my dog i' say yeah always um yeah always he's always there have a big smileing face when you get home from training but um yeah it's always a good one but um no I think the family and friends around me in general but nobody really specifically one person sticks out too much that's good um and downtime I assume the dog gets a run there as well yep yeah he gets a bit of a run down at the park go down to the beach haven't been playing gol or surfing as much recently with all the preparation coming into Paris been throwing everything at that but on a typical year as well I'm also studying psychology at University so um we've dropped that off this year to focus purely on Paris but um get back into that next year which will be timec consuming where you go to uh finished at Newcastle for a bachelor's now I'm looking to get into Griffith for honors cool very good up in the go Coast good luck back to the competition stuff um what does a race day look like for you in preparation do you have like processes that you follow do you have lucky trinkets or special socks that you need to wear or do you have to eat a special breakfast that kind of thing before you get out there not typically um I usually we usually practice the breakfast and all that pretty similarly uh throughout time trials through the season so I'll usually go of a bowl of cereal or something similar sometimes you can't be too picky depending on where you are if you're in Bulgaria it's very hard to find something specific that you find yeah that you'll find in Australia but um yeah so that's pretty standard and then go through the exact race plan off the water have a schedule of down to the minute of different forms of the warmup from stretching to activation to throwing Med balls around and jumping on the bike and then on the water it's the exact same 20-minute warmup that I do every time and um always P before I pull into the gate always um stretch the left leg straight sort of give a bit of a bow to the course like side of respect almost and then take two deep breaths put the nose in the gate and the biggest one for my preparation would probably be thinking about something that makes me happy whether that's family or the dog knowing that this race is the end of the world so I'll be a to go home afterwards and if I do good or bad it's all the same it'll be another race yeah fair enough mate I've been watching the Olympics pretty close over the last couple of weeks and my boys are lot they're really interested and the young guys um they're kenas once I told them I was meeting up with an Olympian they were very excited um their question was what advice would you give them if they're starting out in their careers or just even people that are there to enjoy themselves and have fun I'd say that last bit's exactly what is to enjoy remind of and have fun um I'm somebody who likes to see how far I can push my body um showed that in the offseason doing a I saw a video of you um a bit sick in the in the water at one point as well yeah so I was doing the Hawks fre classic earlier in the season which is a 100K ultramarathon to raise money for charity so went from winning the 200 meter World Championships to six weeks later doing 100 kilometers so it was a good way to motivate to get motivated for that um aerobic preparation that you got to do in the offseason build up that base yeah and then this time of year it's all about that building up lactate and making sure that we've got a bit of energy left with 50 to go that's where that lactate comes in and we start vomiting on the water but I think part of um why I do it is because I like to push myself and see how far I can go but a lot of people whether you're doing it for Fitness fun or just the so the social interactions you have around sport it's yeah you just got to take it from there and see where it leads you that's important things to remember it's all about the the friendships that you make and um The Journey that you can have exactly yeah makes it a lot more fun um I reckon that's a really good not to finish on mate um we really appreciate your time and and we wish you the best of luck you got the whole of the ream team um at your back and and supporting you um as well as the rest of the country so have fun and bring home the gold sweet thank you cheers