Background
Tony is the son of Henri Estanguet, himself a canoeist who won medals at the Wildwater Canoe World Championships in the 1970s.
Tony is the son of Henri Estanguet, himself a canoeist who won medals at the Wildwater Canoe World Championships in the 1970s.
He graduated from top French business school École Supérieure des Sciences Économiques et Commerciales, specializing in sports marketing.
He has competed since the mid-1990s. Estanguet was the flag-bearer for France at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics opening ceremony. He finished in the 9th position (out of 12 competitors.
Only the first eight would qualify for the final) in the semi-finals of the C-1 event and was thus eliminated from the final.
In 2012 he was elected to the International Olympic Committee Athletes" Commission. He will serve as an International Olympic Committee member for eight years.
On November 30 of 2012, he announced that he retired.
His elder brother, Patrice Estanguet, won a bronze medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Estanguet has won three Olympic gold medals in the C-1 event, in 2000, 2004 and 2012. In 2004, he won after the referees very controversially decided to award Michal Martikán a two second penalty which pushed him to second place, only 12 hundredths of a second behind Estanguet. At the 2012 London Summer Olympics, he became the first French Olympian to win three gold medals in the same Olympic discipline. He won twelve medals at the International Coach Federation Canoe Slalom World Championships with five golds (C-1: 2006, 2009, 2010. C-1 team: 2005, 2007), six silvers (C-1: 2003, 2005, 2007. C-1 team: 1997, 2003, 2009), and a bronze (C-1 team: 1999). Estanguet won the overall World Cup title in C-1 in 2003 and 2004. He also won a total of ten medals at the European Championships (4 golds, 3 silvers and 3 bronzes).
International Olympic Committee.
