For Olympic canoer Lucien Delfour, the 300-metre U-shaped White Water Stadium in Penrith represents heart-pumping, Adrenalin-fueled aquatic mayhem.
But he says it wasn't love at first sight when introduced to the sport as a young boy by his father in his native France.
"I didn't like it at all. I hated it," he said. "I even stopped for about two, three months. Eventually he got me back into a kayak, but a slalom boat this time."
Luckily for Delfour he stuck at it. After a strong 2015 season, he ended the year at number three in the K1 world rankings.
But qualifying for Rio wasn't so straightforward. The 27-year-old almost failed to progress past the semi-finals at the Oceania Championships.
"I was ninth and there were three more paddlers to go, so I knew that was it," he said.
"Luckily enough, they stuffed up. So I got into the final and then stuffed up again, a little. But fortunately my raw time was really fast, so that's how I got in."
Now, a new challenge in Rio, representing his adopted country, awaits. Delfour first visited Australia in 2007 with the French junior canoe team and moved here full-time in 2010.
Almost 10 years later, he's officially shed the French tricolour in favour of the green and gold, becoming an Australian citizen in 2014.
Delfour says once he touched down in Australia as a junior paddler, he knew this was where he wanted to establish himself and compete at the highest level.
"I wanted to race for Australia. This is the place to be. This isn't France. I need to be here in Australia," he says.
Delfour's coach Julien Billaut is also a French native and a former K1 world champion himself. Billaut says their French connection is strengthening Lucien's Australian Olympic dream.
"This is a challenge for me as a coach because I deal with Lucien in French and the others are Australian. But Lucien is Australian as well but with this French culture so it's a bit of a game. And yes it's hard, but I think I'm doing a good job here," Billaut says.
Delfour says the toughest competition in Rio will come from his European opponents, but he's aiming for a podium finish nonetheless.
That's if he can overcome his greatest fear.
"We'll just do some runs of the course and suddenly there's something jumping on our feet," he said. "It's frogs. It's quite scary and quite disgusting. I hate it."
He'll be hoping the Rio waters are amphibian-free.
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