Ferguson, Stephen

Stephen Ferguson was born on May 8, 1980 in Auckland . As a child, he was engaged in water sports, was trained under the guidance of his own father, Ian Ferguson , a four-time Olympic champion in kayaking and canoeing. Nevertheless, unlike his father, he began his sports career not in rowing, but in swimming.

He achieved his first serious success at the adult international level in 1998, when he joined the main team of the New Zealand national swimming team and attended the World Championships in Australian Perth and the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, where, however, he could not become one of the winners. Thanks to a series of successful performances, he was awarded the right to defend the country's honor at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney - he participated here in 100 and 200 meter breaststroke races, in the first case he took twenty-seventh place, in the second thirty-first.

Ferguson subsequently decided to concentrate on kayaking, so in 2004 he competed in the Athens Olympic Games in this sport, he managed to reach the semi-finals alone at a distance of 500 meters, while in doubles at a distance of 1000 meters with his partner Ben Fuhi reached the final and showed the eighth result in the decisive race.

As one of the leaders of the New Zealand rowing team, Ferguson successfully qualified for the 2008 Beijing Olympics , this time reached the finals in both of his disciplines, in eighth place alone five hundred meters, he finished fifth in two with two thousand together with Mike Walker . Four years later, he went to the Olympic Games in London , where in a double kayak with Darryl Fitzgerald, he reached the finish line seventh at a kilometer distance.

In addition to swimming and kayaking, Stephen Ferguson also repeatedly participated in coastal rescue competitions, was a member of the New Zealand national team in this sport, and won medals of various denominations at the 2004 and 2006 world championships.

• Stephen Ferguson - Olympic stats on Sports-Reference.com