I will spend today and tomorrow looking at the different classes. There are four medal events at the Olympics; two kayak classes and two canoe classes. Here we look at the equipment, pros and cons and some top paddlers past and present.

K1M - Kayak Men’s Single

K1M is pronounced kay-one-men signifying a male athlete paddling a single one seater closed cockpit kayak.

The kayak paddler is sitting in a seat with the legs stretched out in front of them against moulded knee braces, foam padding and footrests. The footrests are...Read more

The wonderful new Olympic venue in Deodoro further establishes canoe slalom in South America.

The World’s elite slalom paddlers first descended upon this new purpose built venue for the Olympic test event last November. International teams have been able to train on the course ahead of the Rio Olympics, which was also used as part of the selection process for the host Brazilian team.

The Deodoro course, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, is fed by 25 million litres of mildly chlorinated water. Interestingly, this was attracting 11,000 locals a day for a...Read more

As one might expect the qualification for nations for the Rio Olympics was complex, to say the least. In simple terms, there were two principle 2015 qualification events, where nations could qualify places for boats, in respective classes. 

The nations qualified boat places through the 2015 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships which actually took place on the London Olympic course at Lee Valley as well as through the 2015 Pan American Championships. Other continental qualifiers followed later. Still...Read more

We are anticipating five days of exhilarating competition to test the paddler's supreme skill, strength and mental toughness down a minimum of 200 metres of extreme whitewater.

We are assured four new Olympic Canoe Slalom Champions as none of the previous Olympic Champions have qualified to race in Rio.

There are four classes of boat as we crudely call them. OK, yes technically they are canoes and kayaks. Let me explain. There are two kayak classes:

• K1M – which is K one men, meaning a man sitting in a closed cockpit kayak with a double
...Read more

This is the first post of a regular blog where I will aim to bring you insights into the world of canoe slalom every day from now until the 12th of August. This digest will explain this exhilarating sport of canoe slalom, the Olympic Deodoro course venue, recent results from the ICF World Cup and which athletes (paddlers) to look out for that have qualified for their nations.

Look out for these posts in the next two weeks

• Full analysis of the 2016 season so far, who has qualified to represent their nation and who is on form;
...Read more

This is a rundown of the reallocation process for Rio 2016 Olympic Canoe Sprint places following suspensions for Romanian and Belarusian athletes.

All reallocations are applied to the races that the quota was originally allocated; in all cases for Romanian and Belarus athletes qualified through the 2015 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Milan, Italy.  

Romanian K4 Men 1000m out (Trian Neagu, Catalin Turceag, Daniel Burciu, Petrus Gavrila)

Germany K4 1000m Men was the next to qualify but they turned down place which then moved to the Italian K4 Men...Read more