What is Paracanoe?

Paracanoe is the canoeing discipline for athletes with an impairment and races are contested by two types of boat, kayak (K) and va’a (V). The kayak is propelled by a double-blade paddle, while the va’a is an outrigger canoe which has an ama (second pontoon) as a support float and is used with a single-blade paddle. Both kayak and va’a have three different classes of event for men and women, depending on the classification of an athlete’s impairment, with KL1, KL2 and KL3 for kayak and VL1, VL2 and VL3 for va’a. At international level all paracanoe races are individual events and competed at a distance of 200m.

Paracanoe began as an initiative by the International Canoe Federation (ICF) to allow athletes with an impairment to compete in the sport. The discipline featured with exhibition status under the name paddleability at the 2009 Canoe Sprint World Championships in Dartmouth, NS, Canada, and was given official status as paracanoe at the following year’s edition in Poznan, Poland. Later in 2010, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) announced at a meeting in Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China, that paracanoe would make its debut at the Paralympic Games in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. There were six medal events at the Games (three men, three women), all in the kayak category.

In 2020 in Tokyo Va'a will make its Paralympic debut, with three medal events - two for men, one for women - taking to nine races overall on the paracanoe programme. 

• A new academic study will be conducted on “Health, Injuries and Illnesses in Paracanoe athletes" by the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences (GIH). The information will be gathered through electronically provided questionnaires sent out to internationally competing paracanoe athletes and to physicians caring for paracanoe athletes. More information here.

Information concerning the Paralympics:

• Information for Para athletes and IPC members regarding coronavirus
• Freight Support Plan
• Tokyo 2020 Athlete Sponsorship and Advertising Guidelines
• Updated qualification criteria

• 2020 Paracanoe Bulletin
  
• Latest information - classification, development and more
• Paracanoe Committee
• Classification Committee
• Paracanoe Rules
• Competition results
• Development of Paracanoe & other resources

• Athletes classification master list

• Classification Upload Platform
• ICF Classification Rules and Regulations for Paracanoe
• More resources on Classification (including forms and manuals)

The ICF Paracanoe is running a serie of webinar to help the countries with basic knowledge and tools to assist them in developing paracanoe in their region and to help with athlete classification.

The ICF Paracanoe made available the material for such introduction in many languages, and encourage the countries to use it in order to make an introduction to paracanoe to their coaches, clubs, or any other stakeholders:

During 2020, the Paracanoe community Paracanoe recreational and elite athletes have measures themself on the distance of 500 meters on ergometer, and share with the community. 

51 athletes from 16 different countries have taken part in this ergometer challenge. 

Monthly ranking of the Pracanoe Ergometer Challenge:  https://www.canoeicf.com/paracanoe-ergometer-challenge

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMndJHyqX2c&feature=emb_title