Jordan Wood

Fast Facts

Sport: Canoe – Sprint  
Olympic History: Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 
Highlights: Winning the K4 1000 at the 2017 World Championships  
Coach: Jimmy Owens    
Year Born: 1994 
State Born: Queensland   

About Jordan

Jordan Wood started paddling at a very young age, growing up om the Gold Coast by the water with Olympic kayakers for parents.

His late father Steve Wood won K4 1000 metres bronze at Barcelona 1992, while his mother Anna previously competed for The Netherlands, won K2 500m bronze for Australia at Atlanta 1996 and placed sixth at Sydney 2000. Anna is now the coach of the Australian women’s canoe sprint team.

A young Jordan never felt the pressure to pick up a paddle and spent his junior years racing mountain bike, he only started kayaking seriously at 15, when his downhill mountain biking injuries took a toll.  

Wood had his first taste of Olympic glory at the 2013 Australian Youth Olympic Festival where he won gold in the K2 1000 and silver in the K1 1000 and K2 200, then in 2015, he partnered with Riley Fitzsimmons and won K2 1000 gold at the Under 23 World Championships.  

The pair put themselves on the Rio radar when they won the first Grand Prix regatta of the 2016 season, defeating 2015 World Championships silver medallists and Olympians Ken Wallace and Lachlan Tame.  

Wood made his Olympic debut at Rio 2016 where he teamed with Jacob Clear, Fitzsimmons and Wallace in the K4 1000. The crew went down fighting in the final to finish fourth behind Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

2017 was a defining year for Wood as he experienced success in the junior and elite categories, overcoming the diagnosis of an autoimmune disease in the process.

At the 2017 World Championships, he won K4 1000 gold with Fitzsimmons, Stewart and Wallace.  In the same year, Wood and Fitzsimmons also won K2 1000 bronze at the Under 23 World Championships.

The pair’s shared K2 medal haul included a bronze and two silver world cup medals won across 1000 and 500 metres distances. 

At the 2019 Canoe Sprint World Championships, they also finished fifth in the K2 1000, securing Australia a Tokyo 2020 quota spot in the process.

Fitzsimmons and Wood won their selection to Tokyo when they claimed K2 1000 gold at the 2020 Australian Championships in a time of 3 min 12.04sec, with the duo overcoming newcomers Tom Green and Jean van der Westhuyzen who finished second by a 1.05sec margin.  

Wood is married to fellow kayaker and Olympian Alyce Wood (nee Burnett).

Jordan made his second Olympic appearance at the delayed Tokyo 2020 games, competing in the K-2 1000m discipline alongside Aussie Riley Fitzsimmons and in the K-4 500m event with Team Australia (Lachlan Tame, Riley Fitzsimmons and Murray Stewart). 

In the K-2 discipline, Wood and Fitzsimmons would play out a competitive opening heat race, narrowly finishing third and earning the pair a quarter-final placing with a time of 3:18.453. They would bounce back from this race in style, finishing their following quarter-final tie in 1st place with an improved time of 3:10.619. 

The Aussie duo would unfortunately fall short in the semi-final stage of the competition, finishing last place in the race earning them a spot in the B Finals, but no longer in medal contention. In their final race the pair would achieve a time of 3:24.757 and an overall placing of 13th in the K-2 discipline.

Competing in the K-4 500m event, the Aussie team would enjoy a strong start to the competition. Finishing their opening heat in 2nd place, with a time of 1:22.662 earning the squad qualification for the semi-finals. They would follow this form up in an incredibly close semi-final matchup, once again finishing 2nd in the race behind Spain, with a gap of .513 seconds deciding the victors. 

This set the squad up for the final of the competition, with medal contention still in sight. Unforuntately, the squad would fall short of medal placing, completing their last race with a time of 1:25.025 earning them a 6th overall placing in the event.