Great Britain's Liam Heath has revealed that he went into "automatic pilot" mode during his gold medal-winning performance in the men's kayak single 200m sprint at the Rio Olympics.
Heath, who had already collected a silver medal in the K2 200m with teammate Jon Schofield, beat off competition from France's Maxime Beaumont in order to claim his country's 25th gold with a time of 35.197 seconds.
"It has been in my mind every single day for the last four years, but I felt that I went into automatic pilot," said Heath, according to BBC Sport.
"It is worth every ounce. I want to thank everyone here and at home. Jon has been out every day doing drills with me and checking my boat over even though he finished."
Heath beat France's Beaumont by 0.165 seconds, while Saul Craviotto of Spain had to share bronze with Germany's Ronald Rauhe.
