ICF Canoe Sprint Committee activities

Canoe Sprint shines in Paris 

First of all, let’s start with the Olympic Games in Paris. As Chair of the Canoe Sprint Committee, I am delighted to say that Paris 2024 ended successfully. I would like to thank all the teams, the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, ICF staffs, volunteers and technical officials. The beauty of Canoe Sprint and sporting values were shared with over 20,000 spectators and people around the world, continuing the legacy of Tokyo 2020.

Asia welcomes the world 

Just two weeks after the Olympic Games and also before Paralympic Games, we held the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships for non Olympic events in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It was the first World Championships for our discipline to be held in Asia. There were many exciting races, even though they are not Olympic events. The competition was held in the brand new great venue. It’s fantastic to have the City of Samarkand and Ministry of Sports of the country’s Government supporting our sports. Samarkand is the crossing point of civilization so it was great to bring our World Championships to the Uzbek city. 

Future looks bright 

The Paris 2024 Paralympics were also concluded successfully with great competition in Paracanoe. The ICF Canoe Sprint Committee and Paracanoe Committee worked closely together during the Games. As the Chief Official, I worked with John Edwards, Chair of the ICF Paracanoe Committee who was the IF delegate for this competition. The Games were beautifully delivered with great parts of our sports showcased to the world.  On September 7, in the middle of the Paracanoe competition, Paris 2024 and the ICF Canoe Sprint Committee held a meeting to talk about the Canoe Sprint events in LA28. The ICF will present the discipline to the LA28 Organising Committee and the IOC to deliver a great competition in four years’ time. 

By Toshi Furuya, Chair of the ICF Canoe Sprint Committee