HEATH Liam

General
CREATING BOAT FITTINGS
His degree in industrial design and technology has allowed him to develop and produce his own boat fittings with the aim of improving overall performance. He has developed heel bars and thumb nuts, and has designed prototypes of kayaks. "With a degree in industrial design I have a keen interest in graphic design, 3D modelling, rendering, and general design work. Over the last few years I have been designing and producing my own boat fittings to aid in paddling as fast as I possibly can." (shapeways.com, 21 Aug 2016; Instagram profile, 09 Nov 2019)

K1 200M OLYMPIC REMOVAL
He expressed his disappointment after the men's and women's K1 200m events were dropped from the programme for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The decision was made in order to accommodate new extreme canoe slalom events in Paris. He won gold in the K1 200m at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. "There's been no transparency and no communication. Everyone in the paddling community is unanimous in opposition to the way this has been done. There had to be a process in place to allow athletes to have their say. There's no one against adding new events and the sport being more exciting. It had to be a longer timescale to allow athletes and funding systems to adapt. It's upsetting. I think 200m shows canoe sprint at its best, it's fast and explosive. It's something I've been working towards and have had a lot of success in." (insidethegames.biz, 12 Dec 2020, 25 Nov 2020)

RETIREMENT AND RETURN
In the mid-2000s he stepped away from competitive canoe sprint while studying at university. He decided to return to the sport due to the 200m event being added to the Olympic programme for the 2012 Games in London. "I've always been pretty nifty over 200m. So, a good friend of mine down at Wey Kayak Club, Paul Dimmock, got me back in a boat, gave me a programme and taught me some really key lessons about commitment and really giving it everything in each session. I started to see the improvements and that what he was telling me wasn't a load of rubbish. And I just went for it. I left where I was working and committed full-time, without funding initially." (telegraph.co.uk, 20 Aug 2016)