More from Charlotte Henshaw on her gold medal: “My friends and family are and have always been the rock of my career. They are the ones I call on the way to practice and home, either grumpy or in tears or both. They are the ones who really help me get my head out of the sports sphere and just be Charlotte and I am so grateful to them for that.

“But I also have to mention the amazing staff at Paddle UK. We are a super strong team. I couldn’t do what I do if I didn’t have the other athletes pushing me every day in training. A massive thank you goes to them, the support staff, the other athletes and of course to the National Lottery for funding our training centre because it is world class.”

“This time last year I was getting ready to have surgery on my elbow. I had raced last summer with a really unfortunate elbow and I was torn between ‘do I do it now and hope I’m back in shape for the Games or do we risk it and risk not being here at all’ and so I’m so grateful that people advised me to do it when we could and when we did.

“I wasn’t a stranger and I didn’t make a secret of having endometriosis. 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. I think it’s really important to remember that these things are challenging for female athletes. We have to try to be creative and find ways around that. So just huge solidarity with anyone who’s going through things that people might not know about.”