Andrey Kraytor is an Olympic athlete who competed in sprint canoe at the 2016 Games and now coaches the Chinese national team. I had the pleasure of chatting with Andrey about the realities of being an Olympian, the incredible subtleties of paddling a sprint canoe and what it’s like to coach Chinese champions (spoiler alert: it’s a lot of pressure).

We also get to watch a whole bunch of canoe races, of which I’m becoming a big fan 🤨

Andrey was in the final of the C1-200m at the 2016 Olympics in Rio and these days lives in China where he’s the technique coach for the women’s national team. He’s also a total badass on a SUP even though he’s only been paddling on his feet for 2 or 3 years — he almost took the gold medal off Connor Baxter at the ICF Worlds last year in the fastest sprint race our sport has ever seen.    → READ MORE