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Whitewater Slalom is a competitive sport where the aim is to navigate a decked canoe or kayak through a course of gates on river rapids in the fastest time possible. It is one of the two kayak and canoeing disciplines at the Summer Olympics, and is referred to by the IOC as "canoe/kayak slalom". The other Olympic canoeing discipline is canoe/kayak flatwater. There is also wildwater, a non-Olympic canoesport. Aluminum canoe, Upper Klamath Lake Canoeing on the Concord River. ...
Two whitewater kayakers running the Numbers section of the Arkansas River. ...
The Murray River in Australia. ...
A rapid is a section of a river where it loses elevation over a relatively short distance (that is, the stream gradient is locally steepened), causing an increase in water flow and (usually) turbulence. ...
Two whitewater kayakers running the Numbers section of the Arkansas River. ...
Canoeing is the recreational or sporting activity of paddling a canoe or kayak. ...
The Summer Olympic Games are an international multi-sport event held every four years, organised by the International Olympic Committee. ...
// This article is about flatwater canoe racing. ...
Whitewater racing is a competitive discipline of canoeing using either kayaks or canadian canoes. ...
Rules
Each gate consists of two poles hanging from a wire strung across the river. There are 20- 30 numbered gates in a course and they are colored as either green (downstream) or red (upstream), indicating the direction they must be negotiated. Upstream gates are placed in eddies, where the water is flat or moving slightly upstream; the paddler makes the 'eddy turn' and paddles upstream through the gate. Some races even contain reverse gates, to be navigated backwards, which are marked with the letter 'R'. Slalom courses typically take between 80 to 300 seconds to complete. Each competitor has two runs on the course, and the final result is based either on the faster run (in smaller races) or the sum of the two runs (in National and Olympic competitions). In fluid dynamics, an eddy is the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fluid flows past an obstacle. ...
If the competitor's boat, paddle or body touches either pole of the gate, a time penalty of two seconds is added. If the competitor misses a gate completely, displaces it by more than 45 degrees, goes through the gate upside-down, or goes through it in the wrong order, a 50 second penalty is given.
There are four Olympic Medal events:
- C-1 (canoe single) Men
- C-2 (canoe double) Men
- K-1 (kayak single) Men
- K-1 (kayak single) Women
Development of Boats In the 1960's and early 1970's the gates were hung about 10 cm above the water. When racers began making lower volume boats to sneak underneath gates, the gates were raised in response to fears that new boats would be of such low volume as to create a hazard to the paddler. Their low volume sterns allow the boat to slice through the water in a quick turn, or 'pivot'.
Typically, new racing boats cost between $1,200 and $2,500 (or £650 onwards for the cheapest constructions in fibreglass). Usually boats are made with nylon, kevlar, and fiberglass cloth, using epoxy resin to hold the layers together.
Courses Slalom courses are usually on class 2 to class 4 whitewater. Some courses are technical, containing many rocks. Others are on stretches containing fewer rocks and larger waves and holes. The International Scale of River Difficulty is a standardized scale used to rate the safety of a stretch of river, usually a single rapid. ...
Whitewater is formed in a rapid, when a rivers gradient drops enough to form a bubbly, or aerated and unstable current; the frothy water appears white. ...
Slalom canoeing made its Olympic debut in 1972 in Augsburg, W. Germany. It was not seen again until 1992 in Seu d'Urgell as part of the Barcelona games. Since then, slalom paddling has been a regular at the Olympics. List of past Olympic locations:
Augsburg is a city in south-central Germany. ...
La Seu dUrgell is the capital of the comarca of Alt Urgell, in the province of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. ...
The Toccoa River and Ocoee River are actually a single river that flows northwestward through the southern Appalachian Mountains of the southeastern United States. ...
Penrith is a suburb in the City of Penrith in western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. ...
External Links - For more details on the International rules, see the pdf of the international slalom rules as stated by the International Canoe Federation website
- USA Canoe and Kayak
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