ICF Canoe Slalom Committee activities

 

Slalom season begins

 

A lot of work has gone into the start of the season, preparing Host Organising Committees for the staging of their respective events.

Regular online meetings have been held and continue to take place with the HOCs and team leaders.

This has been crucial going into a busy first part of the season with World Cups in Augsburg, Prague and Krakow as well as the Junior and U23 World Championships in Liptovsky Mikulas before the Olympics.

Augsburg delivered another fantastic event, adapting excellently to the persistent rain to ensure everything ran smoothly.

 

Paris 2024 venue checks completed

 

Meetings on the Olympic Games preparations continue on a daily basis.

We recently completed the fine tuning of the Canoe Slalom course at Vaires-sur-Marne for the Olympics.

For four days, we were working from 8.30am to 7pm, carrying out all our final checks on the course.

Our main objective was to improve the first big drop right after the start which was successful.

 

 

We also checked for any safety issues, so it is now all set for the Games.

The course is well balanced and looks fantastic, so I am really looking forward to seeing competition take place on it during the Olympics.

The feedback we have had from the athletes training during thepre Games training period has been really positive.

 

Feasibility study in Africa

 

At the beginning of May, I travelled to Kenya to look at the possibility of a Canoe Slalom facility in Kutus.

The idea is to establish a permanent course as they do not have one in this region of Africa.

That was one of my key activities over the past three months. 

I stayed there for four days meeting with the Kenyan NOC representative and the Interim President of the Kenyan National Federation.

I am now working on a feasibility report and will have to organise several further online meetings with the authorities to develop this project further.

 

By Jean-Michel Prono, Chair of the ICF Canoe Slalom Committee