Alan Thompson (canoeist)
Alan Blair Thompson is a sprint canoeist who competed in the early to mid-1980s. He competed at three Olympic Games and has won two Olympic gold medals for New Zealand.
Thompson was born in 1959 in Gisborne, New Zealand. He received his schooling at Gisborne Boys' High School, for whom he played rugby union; he was selected for the under-18 North Island team.
Thompson attended his first Summer Olympics in 1980 in Moscow and was part of the small New Zealand team of just four athletes that attended that year, as most western athletes stayed away due to the boycott that year.
Thompson won three medals at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships with two silvers, and a bronze.
He won both of his gold medals at Los Angeles in 1984, earning them in the K-1 1000 m and K-4 1000 m events. Thompson is one of the few New Zealanders to have won two or more Olympic gold medals. He went to his third Olympics in 1988 in Seoul, Korea, and came sixth in the K-1 1000 m.
After retiring from top-level canoeing Thompson became a coach, selector and manager for New Zealand canoeing teams and eventually became president of the New Zealand Canoeing Federation.
