Baggali, Nathan

Nathan Baggali was born on December 6, 1975 in Byron Bay , New South Wales . He began to actively engage in rowing in early childhood, was trained at a local canoe club called Kpae-Byron. He debuted at international competitions in 1997.

He achieved his first serious success at the adult international level in 2000, when he joined the Australian national team and thanks to a series of successful appearances, he gained the right to defend the country's honor at the Sydney Summer Olympics at home - in the standings of single kayaks at a distance of 500 meters he reached the semi-finals where finished fourth.

In 2002, Baggali attended the World Championships in Spanish Seville, from where he brought the golden dignity award, won alone at five hundred meters. A year later, at similar competitions in American Gainesville, he repeated this achievement and, in addition, won the bronze medal alone at a thousand meters. As one of the leaders of the Australian rowing team, he successfully qualified for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games - he won two silver medals here: he won second place in the half-kilometer singles race, losing only to the Canadian Adam van Couverden in the final, and showed the second result together with team-mate Clint Robinson in a half-kilometer doubles race, losing to the crew from Germany in the decisive race. He also started alone on the kilometer and here was also close to the prize positions, becoming the fourth.

For the third time in a row at the 2005 World Championships in the Croatian Zagreb, Nathan Baggali received the world title in single kayaks at a distance of 500 meters and added bronze at a distance of 1000 meters to his track record. However, two weeks later he was convicted of using the banned drugs stanozolol and methandienone , and the International Kayaking and Canoeing Federation decided to disqualify for two years.

At the end of the disqualification, Baggali planned to return to the big sport, but could not do this because of serious problems with the law. In February 2007, the police arrested him during a trip to the Gold Coast , finding in his car 762 ecstasy pills. In July, he was accused of stealing kayaks of one of Byron Bay sports clubs, sentencing him to six months of suspended imprisonment and a fine of $ 70 for legal costs. In November, as a result of a raid by the police, Baggali and his brother Drew were again arrested, in total, they found 28 thousand ecstasy tablets and a kilogram of MDMA powder used to manufacture this drug. In May 2009, a court found the former athlete guilty of making and selling ecstasy and sentenced him to imprisonment for up to twenty years. As a result, he was released in 2011, having spent only four years in prison. However, he did not stay at large for long; in November 2013 he was again arrested and charged with several articles related to drug trafficking ^{[1] [2] [3]} .

• Nathan Baggali - Olympic stats on Sports-Reference.com
• Nathan Baggali - medals at major international competitions
• Lists of kayaking and canoeing champions and prize winners (1936-2007 )