French Canoe Slalom paddler Émilie Fer, the 2012 Olympic Champion, recently announced her retirement from competitive canoe slalom. 34-year-old French paddler was the first French female kayaker to win Olympic gold medal in canoe slalom.
Émilie Fer started her sporting career at the age of twelve in her club SPOC La Colle Sur Loup. Five years later she participated at the Junior World Championships and finished eighth in women’s kayak event. Between the years 2005 and 2016 she remained a constant member of the French national team.
The biggest sporting success for Émilie Fer came in 2012 at the London Olympic Games where she finished the final race in front of Australia’s Jessica Fox and Maialen Chourraut from Spain. This was her second Olympic performance. She also participated at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and finished seventh.
She won her first medal at major canoe slalom championships in 2006 at the World Championships in Prague where she celebrated World Champion title in team events together with Mathilde Pichery and Marie Gaspard. The course in Czech capital brought her another major success – in 2013 she won the World Champion title in K1W event. She also has one additional gold medal from the team event at the 2014 World Championships and bronze medal in team event from the World Championships in 2015.
She had a lot of success at the Canoe Slalom European Championships too. She won individual silver medal in 2009 and bronze medal in 2014. She also became K1W team European Champion in 2013, picked up a team silver medal in 2012 and two team bronze medals in 2014 and 2015.
In 2013 Fer was made a Knight (Chevalier) of the Légion d'honneur which is the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits, established in 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte.
“Émilie has just announced the end of her beautiful career with an outstanding record. Émilie is not only our only Olympic champion; she is also a great lady of canoeing, both by her results and her personality. Émilie has not completely put her paddle away, she already begun to pass on to the younger ones, especially in her area. Émilie is and will remain a very special ambassador of our canoeing family! It is a new part of life that opens up for her. We wish her good wind; she can count on us if necessary. Congratulations and thanks,” said Ludovic Royé, the national technical director of the French federation.
27.7.2017
