Tokyo Olympic selection has made Daniel Watkins an ambassador for both Australian paddling and Tasmanian wilderness.
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For more than half of his 24 years, Watkins has been chasing whitewater.
The pursuit has taken him to such exotic locations as Spain, Slovenia, New Zealand, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, England, Brazil, Italy, Germany, France and Poland.
But you can't take Tasmania out of the boy.
"We do have a natural advantage in Tasmania," he said.
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"Kids in New South Wales only really have the Olympic course at Penrith and while Victoria and Western Australia are the other big states, they mostly develop skills from flat water.
"Plus in Sydney you have to pay for whitewater, but in Tassie all the rivers are free, they have plenty of water coming down them and you can jump on whenever you want."
Watkins has spent so much time exploring the backwaters of his home state that he counts his van as being among his three homes.
Although living mostly at Grove in the Huon Valley, the Hobart-born paddler is familiar with rivers throughout his state.
In Sydney you have to pay for whitewater, but in Tassie all the rivers are free, they have plenty of water coming down them and you can jump on whenever you want
- Daniel Watkins
"Our best course in Tassie is at Bradys Lake (near Tarraleah in the Central Highlands). It's Olympic standard and the nationals are held there every second year. It's bigger and faster than most artificial courses.
"We also train on the Mersey River and there's a learning course on the Forth.
"I also train upstream of New Norfolk on the Derwent and I've gone down the Gorge in Launceston which is a lot more wild and bigger than what we race on.
"For a couple of months a year, I live out of my van. It's very much the Tasmanian way of kayaking to camp at places like Bradys or Mersey or Forth."
A 2007 Derwent Canoe Club beginners' program was responsible for dictating the course of the Sacred Heart Geeveston and Guilford Young College pupil's life journey.
"I did play other sports but not seriously," he said.
"I did Little Aths and Auskick but I was not really into sport until I found kayaking.
"I did a learn to paddle program on flat water and as soon as I had enough skills to go on whitewater, I was hooked.
"I love the way you use individual currents to help you surf a wave. It's a very similar feel to why people fall in love with surfing. That's the easiest comparison I give people."
Watkins progressed through junior and under-23 teams to break into the Australian senior squad, becoming a double national senior champion in C1 and K1 and a regular at the sport's major international championships.
It was victory at the Oceania Canoe Slalom Championships in Auckland earlier this year that secured his Olympic spot in the canoe and reserve in the kayak.
"It was pretty exciting because both races came down to the last day. There are three races for selection of which the best two count.
"I had a good lead in C1 but there were still four of us in the running for selection on the last day and it was the same in K1."
Watkins, who will continue training and competing in both boats but with a focus on the canoe, said they have their own distinct characteristics and demands.
"The boats are very similar but in the canoe you are on your knees with straps to hold your legs in, so it is a bit more unstable and you only have one blade.
"I normally have it on the left but I swap it over maybe three or four times on a run. That's fairly new school. All the women do it but it's new to the men to learn to paddle on both sides of the boat.
"Having a fresh arm halfway down the course opens up opportunities and being able to swap means you can make faster decisions."
Despite his wildwater background, the part-time photocopying warehouse worker has also become skilled at sizing up the sport's ever-growing catalogue of man-made courses.
"Manufactured courses can have their own personalities but most are built by the same company so do tend to have the same feel.
"I went to the Tokyo venue for a training camp. It's new and a similar design to the last few Olympic courses which I've also raced on. It's in an awesome location on the harbour and just one train station away from Disneyworld so very accessible.
"If you spend a lot of time on artificial courses you can still learn a lot from natural whitewater but even on the artificial courses whitewater changes a lot.
"Tokyo and Rio are very similar and a very different feel to our natural courses in Tassie and where I train in Penrith.
"Tokyo does have a lot of changing water and it is hard to predict how it's going to react. And they keep moving the obstacles. But a massive part of our sport is adaptability."
Watkins is proud to continue a Tasmanian Olympic paddling record by following in the wake of Peter Genders, John Doak (both 1984), Daniel Collins (1992, '96 and 2000), Peter Eckhardt (1992) and Justin Boocock (1996), with Collins winning a bronze medal in Atlanta.
"We don't have a huge amount of paddlers in Tassie but all those that do come out have been good. We are really strong in juniors and under-23s and have two in the senior team at the moment. We all love rivers so grow up with good whitewater skills.
"It's great to continue that tradition. The paddling community in Tasmania is all for us doing well, there's a great legacy and I won't be the last, that's for sure."
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