Australia’s Naomi Flood is sleeping in an altitude tent in a bid to gain every advantage she can leading into the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

The 30-year-old paddler, who won a race-off in Duisburg, Germany last month for the right to be the last athlete added to Australia’s canoe sprint team, will spend 10 hours a day in an altitude tent as part of an effort to be at her peak on the start line in Rio.

Flood assembled an altitude tent over her bed and will spend time leading to the Games sleeping in the oxygen deprived environment in a bid to encourage her body to produce more red blood cells ahead of the Games.

In a recent interview with news.com.au Flood stated:

“I guess people don’t know that those are the sort of sacrifices you make.’’

“It’s 19 days in this and you have to do 10 hours a day in it to get a benefit."

“There’s no way I’d sleep for 10 hours, so I’ve got to be in there for the seven to eight hours I’d sleep and then hanging out in the tent when I’m at home.’’

Flood also mentioned the benefit she had felt from from altitude cycles, including training – something members of the Australian canoe sprint team completed on the Gold Coast ahead of the London Games.

“There’s (a chamber) at Bond Uni at the Titans’ old centre (of excellence) there, we used that in 2012.

“But sleeping in the tent is different. They say you sleep high, train low you’re sleeping at high altitude and training at low intensity and you still benefit.

“I personally feel like I benefit from it. Everyone’s different. Some people don’t feel like they do and then when they get their bloods done, there’s a massive increase in red blood cell count.

“You get to this stage, I think you look for one percent anywhere you can and a few percent here and there add up and then all of a sudden you’ve got 5 percent.’’

Flood will continue training on the Gold Coast until the end of the month when she heads to Spain to link with training partner New Zealand Olympic gold medallist Lisa Carrington before meeting up with the Australian team.