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Canoe sprint is a
water sport Water sports or aquatic sports are sport, sports activities conducted on waterbodies and can be categorized according to the degree of immersion by the participants. On the water * Boat racing, the use of powerboats to participate in races * ...
in which athletes race in specially designed
sprint canoe A sprint canoe is a canoe used in International Canoe Federation canoe sprint. It is an open boat propelled by one, two or four paddlers from a kneeling position, using single-bladed paddles. The difficulty of balance can depend on how wide or n ...
s or sprint kayaks on calm water over a short distance. Prior to November 2008, canoe sprint was known as flatwater racing. The term is still in use today but is often used as a
hypernym Hypernymy and hyponymy are the semantic relations between a generic term (''hypernym'') and a more specific term (''hyponym''). The hypernym is also called a ''supertype'', ''umbrella term'', or ''blanket term''. The hyponym names a subtype of ...
for both
canoe marathon Canoe marathon is a paddling sport in which athletes paddle a kayak (double-bladed paddle) or canoe (single-bladed paddle) over a long distance to the finish line. The International Canoe Federation states standard distance races are at least wit ...
and canoe sprint. Similarly, the term '
canoeing Canoeing is an activity which involves paddling a canoe with a single-bladed paddle. In some parts of Europe, canoeing refers to both canoeing and kayaking, with a canoe being called an 'open canoe' or Canadian. A few of the recreational ...
' is used to describe both kayaking and canoeing. The sport is governed by the
International Canoe Federation The International Canoe Federation (ICF) is the umbrella organization of all national canoe organizations worldwide. It is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, and administers all aspects of canoe sport worldwide. 157 countries are affiliated ...
(ICF), which recognises four official distances and three boat classes in which athletes can compete. Competitors may race over 200, 500, 1000, and 5000 metres in crews consisting of one, two, or four athletes, across either eight or nine lanes marked by buoys. Occasionally, regional championships include variations to this format, such as 100-meter sprints. Modern canoeing as a competitive sport can be traced back to the mid-19th century when travelers popularised competitive canoeing in central Europe and North America. Around 1900, the first national and international canoeing federations were formed, leading to international competitions in the first quarter of the 20th century. Male canoeists have competed at the
Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The 1896 Summer Olympics, inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, ...
since 1936, and women's canoeing was added to the Olympic programme in 1948. Today, there are twelve canoe sprint events at the Olympics. In addition, the ICF holds an annual
World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...
with many more events. On the whole, European athletes have dominated the sport, winning over 90% of all available medals.


History

The Scottish traveller, John "Rob Roy" MacGregor, is widely recognised for popularising competitive canoeing during the late 19th century. Against the backdrop of Victorian society's growing interest in outdoors activities such as camping and pleasure boating, MacGregor's weekly accounts of his journey through the waterways of Europe became immensely popular. Upon his return to England he authored ''A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe,'' which would become popular and inspire others to try the sport. In 1866 he founded The Canoe Club, the world's first canoe club. It was not long before other clubs started emerging on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1867 The Canoe Club would hold the first modern day canoeing competition. It was in the same year that Prince
Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until Death and state funeral of Edward VII, his death in 1910. The second child ...
became club Commodore, giving the sport even more attention. The new clubs promoted the organisation of regattas and contributed to the establishment of formal national bodies to define the rules of the sport. MacGregor, for example, would go on to found the
American Canoe Association The American Canoe Association (ACA) is the oldest and largest paddle sports organization in the United States, promoting canoeing Canoeing is an activity which involves paddling a canoe with a single-bladed paddle. In some parts of Euro ...
in 1880. The sport's growing popularity in the early 1900s prompted the need for international structure. In 1924, the predecessor of the International Canoe Federation, the ''Internationale Repräsentantenschaft Kanusport'' (IRK), was formed by German, Austrian and Swedish delegates at a meeting hosted by the . This laid the foundation for the first international competitions, including a demonstration event at the 1924 Olympic games. Despite this the sport would not be a part of the next two summer olympics. The
International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...
had rejected applications for the inclusion of canoeing in the
1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly demonstrating that DNA is the genetic material. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris B ...
and 1932 Olympic Games due to the limited number of proposed participating nations. The application to the 1936 Olympic games faced a different challenge. The application was initially rejected in 1933, the same year as the inaugural European championships were held in
Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
. Spearheading this decision was the president of the International Federation for Rowing Societies (
FISA The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA, , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence on domestic soil.
), who expressed concern that an influx of small crafts would compromise the freedom of rowers on lakes and waterways. The IRK, however, successfully appealed this decision in 1934, leading to the inclusion of canoeing at the Summer Olympics starting from the 1936 Olympic Games onwards. The first world championship took place in 1938 in Vaxholm. Since the first international competitions, there has been a noticeable trend of reducing the race distances. As 10km was removed, 500m and 200m were introduced.


Inclusion of women

Despite canoe sprint becoming an Olympic sport in 1936, women had to wait until the 1948 Olympic Games before they were allowed to compete in canoeing at an Olympic level, albeit only in one discipline, as opposed to the eight available to men at the time. This ratio has improved very slowly but steadily since then, with the
2020 Summer Olympics The officially the and officially branded as were an international multi-sport event that was held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on 21 July 2021. Tokyo ...
being the first Olympic Games to see an equal number of events for both women and men, with women competing in canoes for the first time. The slow progress has often been justified by an aim to distribute events fairly, given event caps and athlete quotas in light of a lesser number of female athletes, particularly in canoeing. This is still the case in most nations. Similarly, the 2021 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships were the first to have an equal number of events for both women and men, with women being able to race in canoes since the 2010 World Championships.


Race categories

Race categories are defined by gender, boat class, and distance. The distances recognized by the ICF for international canoe sprint races are 200m, 500m, 1000m, and 5000m. Over these four distances, the ICF recognizes six boat classes, known as 'International Boats'. These are: K1, K2, K4, C1, C2, and C4, where the number indicates the size of the crew and “K” stands for kayak and “C” for canoe. Thus "MK1 1000m" would stand for a male one-person kayak racing over 1000 meters. Crew boats only race over the shortest three distances, which are also the only distances to have featured at the Olympic Games since 1960. Whilst athletes must race in designated lanes for the 200, 500, and 1000 meter races, the 5000m diverges from this format. Instead, athletes start in a large pack, navigating a set course with several turning points. More turns have been introduced over time with the aim of making the event more interesting to spectators.


Trends

As there are many different possible combinations amongst boat classes and distances, not every possible event is held. This has led to a general trend of allocating shorter events to women and longer events to men, especially at the Olympics where there is an event cap. This trend has become much less noticeable at the ICF World Championships, with only one race category that men and women do not both compete in since 2021. The same is true for canoes, which race over shorter distances at the Olympics in comparison to kayaks. At the ICF World Championships, though, there is little to no difference between the classes. While the ICF has given no clear reason for this difference, it is likely due to the gap in speeds between men and women, and between kayaks and canoes. This also supports the fact that the faster crew boats, especially the C4 and the K4, tend to race over 500 and 1000 meters. At the
2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...
and 2022 ICF World Championships, the ICF launched a completely new race class: the mixed K2 200m and 500m respectively. Here a man and a woman race together, and the class is abbreviated by an X; for example, "XK2 200". The 2023 Junior and U23 World Championships also saw the introduction of a relay mixed K1 5000m, which has yet to be brought to the senior level. At the 2023 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships, a radical change was made to the 5000 meter race when the ICF introduced six portages. During these, athletes must jump out of their boats and carry them for a short distance before getting back in. This decision was made after the success of canoe marathon, where portages are an integral part of the discipline, in engaging viewers. This decision has been met with critique in some circles, as marathon paddlers suddenly gained a distinct advantage due to being more practiced at portaging. Additionally, sprint boats cannot have a foot pump to remove water from the boat, making portages more difficult and chaotic, with equipment sometimes becoming damaged, causing athletes to retire from the race.


Venues

Canoe sprint races take place on flatwater courses, including lakes, calm rivers, or artificial waterways. Regattas at a national and international level take place on regatta courses, which are typically 2km long and consist of different lanes demarcated by buoys. The colour and placement of the buoys follows the Albano-system. The ICF further requires that there is a homologated start system at the 200m, 500m and 1000m marks. For long distance races, so the 5000m, the ICF requires either a long distance start system or a long pontoon.


Kayak

In a kayak, the paddler is seated in the direction of travel, and uses a double-bladed
paddle A paddle is a handheld tool with an elongated handle and a flat, widened end (the ''blade'') used as a lever to apply force onto the bladed end. It most commonly describes a completely handheld tool used to propel a human-powered watercraft by p ...
. Kayaks have a
rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, airship, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (usually air or water). On an airplane, the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw ...
for steering and course adjustment, which is operated by the feet of the paddler in the front. The paddle used is usually a 'wing paddle' (although standard asymmetrical paddles can also be used) – wing paddles have blades which are shaped to resemble a
wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...
or spoon, creating lift and increasing the power and stability of the stroke. There are many variations of wing paddles, ranging from longer and narrower options for more stability throughout the entire stroke to more extreme 'teardrop' shaped paddles for a firmer application of power at the start of the stroke.


Canoe

In a canoe the paddler kneels on one knee with the other leg forward and foot flat on the floor of the boat, and paddles a single-bladed paddle on one side only with what is known as a 'J-stroke' to control the boat's direction. In Canada, a racing class exists for the C-15 or WC or "
War Canoe A war canoe is a watercraft of the canoe type designed and outfitted for warfare, and which is found in various forms in many world cultures. In modern times, such designs have become adapted as a sport, and "war canoe" can mean a type of flatwa ...
", as well as a similarly designed C-4 (which is much shorter and more squat than an 'International' C-4). An antiquated boat class is the C-7, resembling a large C4 which was debuted by the ICF with little success. For racing canoes, the blade is typically short and broad, with a 'power face' on one side that is either flat or scalloped out. The shaft will typically be longer than a tripping canoe paddle, because the kneeling position puts the paddler higher above the surface of the water. More recent designs of canoe racing paddles often have a slight bent shaft, commonly 12–14 degrees. (a concept of canoe designer Eugene Jensen in the 1960s). Many high-performance canoe paddlers prefer the feel of a wooden handle with a carbon fiber shaft and blade, while nearly all high-performance kayak paddlers use paddles made completely of carbon fiber.


Gallery

File:Rio 2016. Canoagem de velocidade-Canoe sprint (28529187903).jpg File:Rio 2016. Canoagem de velocidade-Canoe sprint (29147504455).jpg File:Rio 2016. Canoagem de velocidade-Canoe sprint (29069833911).jpg File:Rio 2016. Canoagem de velocidade-Canoe sprint (29069845691).jpg File:Mohammad Abubakar Durrani in Asian Canoe Sprint Championship Samarqand 2013.jpg File:Rio 2016. Canoagem de velocidade-Canoe sprint (29147289965).jpg File:Rio 2016. Canoagem de Velocidade-Canoe sprint (29142985285).jpg


See also

*
Canoe marathon Canoe marathon is a paddling sport in which athletes paddle a kayak (double-bladed paddle) or canoe (single-bladed paddle) over a long distance to the finish line. The International Canoe Federation states standard distance races are at least wit ...
* Canoeing at the Summer Olympics *
International Canoe Federation The International Canoe Federation (ICF) is the umbrella organization of all national canoe organizations worldwide. It is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, and administers all aspects of canoe sport worldwide. 157 countries are affiliated ...
*
ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships The ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships are an international event in canoe racing, one of two top-tier Summer Olympic sport events organized by the International Canoe Federation (the other being the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships). They ...


References

{{Authority control Canoeing disciplines Summer Olympic disciplines Canoe racing