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John Southwood
Image Descriptions: John Southwood was born in Orange on 18 January 1943 and represented Australia in successive Olympic Games at Mexico City in 1968, Munich in 1972 and Montreal in 1976. He won his first Australian sprint championship in 1966 and within 10 years he had won 25 Australian Canoeing championships, represented Australia in three Olympics and competed at the World Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark.
John trained at Lake Canobolas near Orange and his Olympic rivals found it laughable that his training was done on a waterway barely 500m long and done while in full time employment as a carpenter. It was his skill as a carpenter that enabled him to construct much of his own training equipment. John's dedication and determination was rewarded by the financial support of the Orange Community, which largely made it possible for him to compete at Mexico City and Copenhagen.
In Mexico City John performed creditably to make the semi-finals in K2 over 1000m. At his peak in 1969 he scooped the Australian titles for K1, taking out the triple of 500m, 1000m and 10,000m events. He turned in a great effort in 1970 to be placed seventh in the K1 over 1000m in the world championships in Copenhagen.
John now resides in Orange.
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