What is Canoe Slalom?

You are at the start for an international slalom in the heart of the Alps. 40 tonnes of water thunder past you every second, and you are in a little boat weighing barely 9 kilos. Your mind is so focused that you can’t even hear the water. You are thinking only about the 18 gates that you must not miss. Above all, that key sequence, the one that has already put paid to some competitors’ hopes after months of training.

5 beeps from the electronic starter. At the 5th, you’re away.

The first part of the course has been designed to tear your arms off. On the bank, your supporters are going crazy – but you can hear nothing. You haven’t cleared one gate before you focus on the next.

Half the course done. So far, no touches. Your arms are getting pumped, your body is steaming despite the chill of the river. Now, the key passage. Total concentration. One slip will destroy you. Triumph or disaster is here, and you know it.

You’re through. Rising confidence: you push harder still, though your arms are nearly paralysed. You must stay focused, you could blow it even in the last gate. And you are there. The final sprint. 10 metres to the finishing gate. 10 metres. Eternity.

Canoe slalom is one of the most spectacular watersports, demanding skill, stamina and courage. The aim is to run a rapid river course marked by “gates” fast, and without touching.

A “gate” is two poles, suspended over the water. Green and white gates are negotiated in a downstream direction, red and white gates upstream. The gates are placed so that you must make tricky cross-current moves and use the eddies and waves.

You have to pass through all the gates in number order, and in the right direction. If you touch a pole with anything – paddle, boat, buoyancy aid, helmet or any part of your body – a 2 second penalty is added to your time. If you miss a gate out, or go through in the wrong direction or upside down, the penalty is 50 seconds – a wipeout in serious competition! The aim is fast and clean. Each competitor takes two runs, and the best run of the two counts.

In Division 4, where you start, it won’t be too hard – a rush of water from a weir, or moving water in a stream. When you get to Division 1 it will be big and tricky!

The gates are positioned to test your skill in using, and coping with, the water. This is perfect training for running big whitewater rivers. There will be an upstream gate to test your ability to break out into the eddy behind a rock; then a downstream gate the far side so that you must ferry glide or surf a wave to reach it before the river pushes you past. It takes skill, as well as speed.

You must pick, and paddle, a line that turns the current to advantage. You must learn to read the water.

Five classes compete: Men’s and Women’s Kayak, Men’s and Women’s Canadian Singles and Canadian Doubles. A new rough-and-tumble format, Kayak Cross, has been introduced too.

This is a sport in which Britain excels. Richard Fox was 5 times K1M World Champion. Lynn Simpson was K1W World Champion in 1995. Paul Ratcliffe held the K1M World Cup and won the silver medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Campbell Walsh won the K1M silver medal and Helen Reeves the K1W bronze at Athens in 2004. David Florence won the C1M silver medal in Beijing in 2008. At London 2012, Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott took the C2 gold medal, only a fraction of a second ahead of David Florence and Richard Hounslow, who won silver. David Florence was C1M World Champion in 2013 and 2015. Florence and Hounslow won the C2 silver medal again at Rio in 2016, where Joe Clarke took the K1M gold medal.

In 2021 Mallory Franklin won silver at the Olympics in Tokyo, and at the 2023 World Championships in London Mallory Franklin won gold and Kimberley Woods silver. Joe Clarke took the K1M gold and the Men’s Kayak Cross gold, while Kimberley Woods took the Women’s Kayak Cross gold.