More from Charlotte Henshaw on her gold medal: “My friends and family are and will always be the rock in my career. They are the ones I call to training and back, grumpy or crying, or both. They are the ones who really help me to disconnect from the sports world and just be Charlotte. I am so grateful for that.

“But I also have to mention the amazing staff at Paddle UK. We are a super strong team, I wouldn’t do what I do without the rest of the athletes who push me every day in training and I want to say a massive thank you to them, the support staff, the rest of the athletes and of course the National Lottery for funding our training centre, because it is world class.”

“This time last year I was preparing for surgery on my elbow. I had competed last summer with a bad elbow and I was torn between ‘do I do it now and hope I’m in shape for the Games, or do we take the risk and risk not being there at all’. So I’m so grateful that people encouraged me to do it when we could and when we did.

“I’m not a stranger or a secret keeper of the fact that I have endometriosis and I think it’s still important to keep those conversations going, it’s a disease that has no cure and I deal with it every day and I think it’s really important to remember that those things present challenges for athletes. We have to try and be creative and find ways to deal with it, so just massive solidarity for anyone who has things that people may not know about.”