Blog posts
Olympic Canoe Slalom Training Cancelled
All Olympic canoe/kayak slalom training sessions at Whitewater Stadium have been cancelled on Thursday afternoon due to "technical issues on the course," organizers announced.
"It was an issue with the pumps on the course," Miguel Gomes, media officer at Whitewater Stadium, said to NBC Olympics. "It should be fixed today."
Gomes was unsure if the fix would take 15 minutes or a couple of hours – but expects slalom training to resume on Friday.
Gomes does not expect competition schedules to be affected.
Rio 2016 Organizing Committee later released...Read more
Canoe slalom support from the bank - the coach
Today’s posts look both at the important role of the coach and behind the scenes of how the event is judged.
The coach plays a pivotal role in supporting the athlete towards that Ultimate Run. This is not a short-term partnership as the coach and athlete will have spent years working together to hone their performance.
The coach is one member of the athletes' support team that extends to sports psychologists, physiotherapists, dieticians, personal trainers and managers.
Each of the major nation’s competing at Deodoro starting on...Read more
The mental game
We can assume the paddlers at the Olympics are all at the peak of their fitness. We can assume they have all mastered advanced whitewater skills and technique such that there is little to choose between them. So what will make the Olympic champions?
We interviewed Jonathan Males Ph.D. Males is a sports psychologist who has worked with athletes and coaches across the last seven Olympic games. He is the author of In the Flow, a book on performance psychology for paddle sports....Read more
Feel The Ultimate Run
Rici Funk (GER:K1W) helps us understand what it would feel to race on the Rio course.
Yesterday, we highlighted U23 paddlers on the rise. 24-year-old Funk world ranking has risen from 31 in 2012 to number 4. This makes it all the more disappointing to know that she is not racing at the Rio Olympics. Funk won the semi-final at the November Deodoro test event in 106.69 seconds clear and she currently leads the 2016 World Cup series. I predict we will see Funk at her best at next year’s ICF World Championships as we start the next Olympic cycle.
...Read more
Canoe slalom by the numbers
RIO DE JANEIRO - By the numbers for the canoe slalom competition which begins on Sunday 7 August at the Whitewater Stadium.
1972 - Canoe slalom was first part of the Olympic programme at the Munich 1972 Olympic Games. Athletes from former Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany) won all four gold medals. Canoe slalom was dropped from the programme for 20 years, returning in 1992.
36 - Elena KALISKA (SVK) is the oldest athlete to have won a gold medal in Olympic canoe slalom (as a 36-year-old). She did so in the women's K1 at the...Read more
Paddler DAWSON (NZL) finds that mum knows best
RIO DE JANEIRO - New Zealand paddler Mike DAWSON is hoping his second Olympic Games will be less of a family affair than his first, when his father protested his mother's awarding of a time penalty for touching a gate.
"At London 2012 I had quite a unique experience as my mum was a judge and she happened to give me a two-second penalty," DAWSON said after training at the Whitewater Stadium in Deodoro X-Park.
"I touched the pole with the back of my life jacket so I didn't think I had actually touched it. My dad, Les, who was my team manager and coach, protested that touch...Read more
