The People’s Republic of China has been stepping up its efforts to develop kayak cross with the assistance of a former New Zealand paddler.
With kayak cross making its debut at the Olympic Games in Paris, China has looked to place further emphasis on the development of the event in the country.
New Zealand’s Mike Dawson was brought in last November to help launch the country’s first kayak cross programme.
Dawson was a top performer in kayak cross during his career, winning bronze when it first appeared at the International Canoe Federation Canoe Slalom World Championships in 2017 before claiming more medals on the ICF Canoe Slalom World Cup circuit.
“The Chinese team approached me as they were looking to develop their kayak cross programme,” said Dawson.
“Kayak cross is the new Olympic event in Paris and they knew that they had a big opportunity to get another Olympic quota in Prague so they reached out and we started a kayak cross programme.
“It’s a new sport and they have always focused on Canoe Slalom in the traditional sense but given it is in the Olympics, they wanted to ramp up their efforts so we started to work with a big group of athletes and teach them the skills required for kayak cross and some of the tactics, designing training sessions and just helping them improve on the water.”
Xin Quan and Shiting Li will represent China in kayak cross at the Games having already participated in kayak single.
China failed to gain another quota at the global Olympic kayak cross qualifier, but Dawson is optimistic over the future of the event in the Asian nation.
“All the kayak cross athletes that I have been working with have a background in slalom so they have paddled for many years and they have come from all corners of China and all the different provinces,” said Dawson.
“When I first started working with China, it was a big learning curve for me to see how another country operated in the sport and how they trained, the facilities they had and the athletes they had.
“At the start, it was about trying to take stock of what they have in China and how to use it to our best advantage to develop the sport and that was about teaching the athletes the skills, how to learn from every session and what other nations are doing and trying to cope and speed up our learning curve so they will be in the best shape when they need to be in Europe.”
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