ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships

[Kelly-Rand]

Last weekend I caught the last of the slalom championship heats in Spain. The events I saw were the semi finals for men's C1 and K1, and the women's C1 and men's K1 finals. I thought the course was very challenging but not exciting. The downstream gates were more entertaining to me than the more challenging upstream gates and combinations. What seems to me to be the reason for this is that the narrow artificial course provides for a limited type of pour-over rapid. Their height or steepness varies but the common characteristic is steep eddy lines that stunt quick acceleration out of the upstream pivot turns. I was really amazed at how narrow a time difference there was between the winning and 10th place finishers in these final heats. It really is indicative that any one of the participants could have won excluding a couple of 50 sec penalties for not getting your head completely in the gate.
Interesting development is that C2 is now X2 because it is now required to be mixed gender.
The only one from the US to finish in the top 20 was a 16 yearold woman C1 paddler who placed fourth, I think that is very promising if she actually qualified for a spot in the Olympics next year.
I found it funny for how many of the K1 paddlers hit one of the upstream gates with that pesky extra blade.
Anyway I feel lucky catching this event.