‘God forbid they end up racing against each other’ - Twins Robert and Noel Hendrick gunning for rare Olympics pairing

When Pat Hendrick first suspected his twin sons Robert and Noel had caught the thrill of canoe and kayak racing, aged 12, he made absolutely sure to steer them into different classes. Just in case they ever made a success of it, and God forbid ended up competing against each other.

Sibling rivalry between twins is enough already, more so in a sport known for its intensely close margins between victory and defeat. One mistake and it’s typically race over.

Fast forward to the Canoe Slalom World Championships in London, two weeks ago, where Robert and Noel both qualified their different boats for the Paris Olympics next summer, now poised to make that rare twin representation on the biggest sporting stage of all.

Only it’s not quite over the line just yet. As with other Olympic water sports, including rowing, boats are qualified first, individual competitors then decided later by the national federations. Robert will likely face a Paris race-off early next year against Liam Jegou, who beat him in for the Tokyo Olympics, while Noel is effectively sure of his spot, given the absence of any close competition.

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Their boats could easily be mistaken as near identical. Robert specialises in the C1 canoe, using a single-bladed paddle to propel the boat forward while kneeling in the boat. Noel specialises in the K1 kayak, seated in the boat and using a double-bladed paddle.

Before setting off on the next stage of the journey towards Paris, the twins sat down together at the Hendrick family home in Clane, Co Kildare, to further explain where it all started and how far the 25-year-olds have come.

Robert: “We have always paddled in different boats, since getting into competition. I was always C1, Noel always K1, that was all by design. But compared to kids in other parts of Europe, we would have been late coming to the sport. Most of those we compete against were in a boat at four or five.

“We started at Wild Water Kayak Club at 12, mixing loads of different types of paddle sports, then it cascaded quite quick, and we were talent-spotted onto the national development programme, around 2012.”

Noel: “Yeah, our dad saw this coming well in advance, and thought ‘I don’t want to put these in direct competition with each other’.

“We did compete in the double for years, the C2, which was an Olympic class right up to Rio. We were fourth in the Junior World Championships in 2015, definitely our greatest result, before the class kind of died away.”

Race in the rapids

Their competitive arena is the same, canoe and kayak slalom primarily a race against the clock and the whitewater rapids. Typically there are 25 numbered gates, around eight of which are upstream, completed in around 100 seconds. Touch a single pole and it’s a two-second penalty; fail to navigate one correctly it’s a 50-second penalty, essentially a knockout blow.

In keeping with the nature of the sport, qualification for the Paris Olympics was ruthless. At the World Championships in London, staged at the Lee Valley Centre built for the 2012 Olympics, Robert had to finish in the top-12 overall (only 18 spots are available for Paris), Noel the top-16 (24 Paris spots available). Strictly one competitor per country too.

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Robert was up first in his semi-final, on the Friday, nailing 16th spot, the country quota meaning he ended up ninth best. Noel followed on the Saturday, also nailing 16th spot, the country quota meaning he finished 15th, also inside Paris qualification.

Again, Robert has been here before, qualifying the C1 for Tokyo after his 11th-place finish at the 2019 World Championships. That went to a race-off in London in early 2020, Jegou enjoying the better run and with that Olympic selection, even before Covid-19 kicked the Olympics into 2021.

Robert then moved to London two years ago, where he is studying for an MA in physiotherapy, in part to familiarise himself with the Lee Valley course and maximise his chances of making Paris this time around.

Robert: “The trick really is not to race for the quota spot, just to race well, and I considered London my home-from-home venue, in front of a de facto home crowd. That was key for me, just putting down the best run I could do.

“Right now, it is similar to Tokyo, you qualify the boat first, not yourself. So it looks like it will go to another race-off early next year, maybe in Oceania, between Liam and I. So it’s just about keeping your focus on your next race, rather than get ahead of yourself.”

Noel: “I’d echo a lot of that, you can’t focus too much on the quota, just race that run for what it is. For me it had been such a long build-up already, watching Robert racing on the Friday, for his quota spot.

“Eating my breakfast on the Saturday morning, I was like ‘I never want to do this ever again!’ That’s how nervous I was. It’s mad because there were 40 boats in the semi-final, and any one of us could have made it. So again, just so happy to bring that performance, my best result at the World Champs, and probably reflects where I am now.

“It’s the same situation as Robert, in that nothing is announced yet, but because there’s no one else close, there won’t be a race-off, no. So yeah, I’m already starting to prepare for Paris.”

On that basis, Noel went to the final Slalom World Cup event in Paris this weekend, which doubles as the Olympic test event at the purpose-built Vaires-Sur-Marne nautical stadium, 40km east of Paris (unfortunately illness forced his withdrawal). Robert, meanwhile, is already turning his attention to that Paris race-off, likely to happen in January, and taking an end-of-season break now.

[ Irish rowers qualify three more boats for Paris Olympics ]

They were born on Christmas Eve (“a Christmas present for our my mother”, Robert says) with water sport already running in the family.

After getting into slalom racing around 2012, both twins credit their rapid progress to the involvement of Eoin Rheinisch, a fellow Kildare native and three-time Olympian. In Beijing in 2008, Rheinisch was sitting in the gold medal position in the K1 with only three competitors to go. He ended up fourth.

Noel: “We actually went to the London Olympics in 2012 to watch Eoin, then started with working with him in 2013, after he retired. So 10 years ago this year. We joked about that with Eoin in London, qualifying these boats was 10 years in the making.”

There’s little fame or fortune involved, and even in Olympic terms they’re in a minority sport, more so in a country still without any competitive whitewater facility.

Robert: “Canoeing, it’s so unpredictable, you just have to love it. Not the results, the racing, just doing it every day, being out on the water.

“Because you are just losing, all the time. There is only one paddler in history who has a positive win ratio, Jessica Fox of Australia, she’s won more than she loses. For everyone else, there’s a new winner every week, and that’s what makes it so exciting. It means you have to be in it for more than the results, or the funding. You have to love it.

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Noel: “Yeah, you definitely have to be a bit obsessed just to get to by.”

Putting any sibling rivalry aside, traditionally what is seen as more testing, C1 or K1?

Noel: “You’re going to cause an argument here.”

Robert: “We all know if you’re only using one paddle, it’s a bigger challenge.”

Noel: “Well no, we’ve always described the difference as the 100m against the 100m hurdles. In kayak, there are faster times set, but mechanically, Robert’s class. In the canoe, [it] is more difficult. When he’s analysing a course, he’d have more figuring out to do, whereas for me, we’re trying to find the smallest margins of time, because it is less difficult, mechanically.”

Robert: “And we’d still race against each other quite regularly, in training, that gets very heated. But it also works well because I usually win.”

Noel: “I win, I always win.”

Robert: “No, there’s always a bit of to-ing and fro-ing for sure, but being able to compete against each other, just not in direct competition, works really well. You push harder than you normally would, in a more aggressive, risky way.”

It’s got them this far, now Paris beckons for them both. A potential twin success story unlike any other in Irish Olympic history.