Development of Slalom Boats and Olympic Canoe Slalom Tickets

In the 1960s and early 1970s, boats were made of heavy fiberglass and nylon. The boats were high volume and weighed over 65 pounds. In the early 1970s Kevlar was used and the boats became lighter as well as the volume of the boats was being reduced almost every year as new designs were made. A minimum boat weight was introduced to equalize competition when super light materials began to effect race results. The I.C.F also reduced the width of the boats in the early 1970s. 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 fiberglass. Usually boats are made with carbon fiber, Kevlar, and fiberglass cloth, using epoxy or polyester resin to hold the layers together. Foam sandwich construction in between layers of carbon, Kevlar or Aramid is another technique in use to increase the stiffness of slalom boats.

Recently, the minimum length of these boats were reduced from 4 meters down to 3.5 meters, causing a flurry of new, faster boat designs which are able to navigate courses with more speed and precision. The shorter length also allows for easier navigation and less boat damage in the smaller man made river beds that are prevalent in current elite competitions. Boat design progression is rather limited year to year. Designs tend to focus on providing optimal performance for upcoming critical race venues. Olympic years tend to generate boat designs with specific performance characteristics tuned for the upcoming Olympic course.

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The British Canoe Union and Canoe Slalom Tickets

The British Canoe Union is delighted to announce that the International Canoe Federation has awarded us the 2015 Canoe Slalom World Championships at the Lee Valley White Water Centre, London, home to Canoe Slalom in 2012. In a tightly fought contest, the British Canoe Union managed to prevail over a strong bid from the French Canoe Federation, bringing the Championships back to British waters for the first time in 20 years.

Delighted with the announcement, Paul Owen, British Canoe Union, CEO, commented “The British Canoe Union is extremely proud and excited to have been awarded the 2015 Canoe Slalom World Championships at Lee Valley White Water Centre. We are fully committed to delivering a World Class Event on behalf of the International Canoe Federation. I would like to thank our partners for the fantastic support the British Canoe Union has received in preparation of the bid, especially that of our Government, Lee Valley Regional Park, and UK Sport who all played a substantial part in the bids success. I am convinced that the 2015 Canoe Slalom World Championship will be a fantastic event, providing an excellent opportunity to showcase our sport worldwide.”

A contributing factor in the decision to award the Championship to Great Britain was to ensure the legacy of the State of the Art white water stadium post the Olympic Games, Lee Valley and Canoe Slalom are the first 2012 legacy venue to have won a World Championships. Another great strength of the bid was the partnerships and commitment displayed between Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, UK Sport and the BCU. A thrilled Shaun Dawson Chief Executive of Lee Valley Regional Park Authority commented “We are delighted to host the World Championships here at Lee Valley White Water Centre. The competition allows us to see legacy in action and raise the profile of this exciting sport to a wider audience. We are looking forward to hosting the event and bringing an international audience to the Centre in 2015.”

Essential to the success of the bid was the dedicated support from UK Sport, the nation’s high performance sports agency. Through their National Lottery funded World Class Events Program, the bid was provided with significant support and financial assistance from the UK Government, which no doubt had major impact in securing the Championship.

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Lee Valley White Water Center and Olympic Canoe Slalom Tickets

Lee Valley White Water Centre will host the Olympic Canoe Slalom events of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Anne, Princess Royal officially opened the venue on 9 December 2010. The £31 million project was finished on schedule and was the first newly-constructed Olympic venue to be completed.   Lee Valley White Water Centre has now been selected to host the 2015 ICF Olympic Canoe Slalom World Championships.

The venue is located between the towns of Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire and Waltham Abbey in Essex. The site is just outside the northern boundary of Greater London and 14 km north of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. The Centre is in the heart of River Lee Country Park which is part of the 40 km2, 42 km long Lee Valley Park. The Center opened in late 2010 offering canoeing and rafting activities to the public ahead of the London 2012 Summer Olympics.

The venue has a purpose built slalom course for the Olympic white water canoe events flat water canoeing and kayaking events will take place at Dorney Lake, Buckinghamshire and west of London. The main competition channel is an international and Olympic standard 300 meter canoe and kayak slalom course. It and the shorter warm-up course empty into the warm up and cool down lake. The white water is created by a system of pumps which lift water into the two start pools. All of the water contained in the system is slightly chlorinated in order to retain water quality. During the Games, temporary seating will be installed around the venue for 12,000 spectators.

The 300 meter competition course has a drop of 5.5 meters, for an average slope of 1.8% and a pump powered stream flow of 13 cubic meters per second. The intermediate/warm-up course is 160 meters long with a drop of 1.6 meters and flow of 10.5 cubic meters per second. A 10,000 square meter lake, filled with groundwater, supplies the water for the pumps. The course is sited within a new landscaped parkland setting, including path and bridge networks to enable spectators to have access and view the events. A new facility building houses reception, cafe, changing rooms, shop, offices, spectator viewing, equipment storage and water pump and filtration facilities.

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Michal Martikan and canoe Slalom Tickets

Michal Martikan was on born May 18, 1979. He is a Slovak slalom canoeist. In 1996 he became the first athlete to win an Olympic Games gold medal for Slovakia since the country gained independence in 1993. In total he won 4 Olympic medals 2 gold medals and 2 silver medals, which is the most among all slalom paddlers. He has also won the World Championship title in the C-1 individual category four times. He is considered by many the greatest C-1 slalom paddler alive.

At the age of 16, Michal Martikan became the youngest winner of a World Cup slalom canoeing event. Three months later, at age 17, Martikan was in sixth place after the first run of the canoe slalom singles event at the 1996 Olympics. With nothing to lose, he went all out on the second run and just bettered the score of defending champion Lukas Pollert of the Czech Republic. Martikan was the first Olympic champion to represent independent Slovakia. He entered the 2000 Olympics as the favorite, having consistently finished near the top in every major competition and in each World Cup series. At the Sydney Games, Martikan registered the best score in the qualifying round, but was only in fifth place after the first run of the final. In the second run, he paddled a perfect course and his time was the fastest of the round. 

He was able to move up to the silver medal position behind Tony Estanguet of France. Competing in his third Olympics in 2004, Martikan again led the qualifying round. He also earned the highest score in the semifinals, which also served as the first run of the final. After the second run, it appeared that Martikan had regained the Olympic title, but the referees controversially decided to award him a two second penalty which pushed him to second place, only 12 hundredths of a second behind Estanguet. However, Michal Martikan is the only slalom canoeist to win four Olympic medals, because he also won the gold medal in the Beijing 2008 Olympics in the Men's slalom C-1. He has also won the overall World Cup title four times at1998, 2000, 2001 and 2006 which is a record among C-1 paddlers. At the European Championships he has won four straight individual gold medals between 2007 and 2010. Slovakia won the C-1 team event 7 times with him in the team. He also has 3 silver medals 2 individual and 1 in team event.

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Canoe Slalom Tickets

Canoe slalom is a competitive sport since November 2008. Where the aim is to navigate a decked canoe or kayak through a course of hanging 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 International Olympic Committee as Canoe slalom. The first World Championship held in North America was held at Jonquiere, in Quebec, Canada in 1979.

Each gate consists of one or two poles hanging from a wire strung across the river. There are 18-25, of which 6-7 must be upstream gates, 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 often placed in eddies, where the water is flat or moving slightly upstream; the paddler eddies out from the main current and paddles upstream through the gate. Most slalom courses take 80 to 120 seconds to complete for the fastest paddlers. Depending on the level of competition, difficulty of course, degree of water turbulence and ability of the other paddlers, times can go up to 200 seconds. Each competitor has two runs on the course, and the final result is based either on the faster run or the sum of the two runs. In international competitions like World Cups, World Championships and Olympic Games Each competitor does two runs in the qualification round, the times are added to give the qualification result. Depending on the number of participants of the event, 10 to 40 boats make it through to the semi-final; this consists of one run on a different course. The fastest 10 boats per event make it through to the final, where they navigate the semi-final course once more and times of semi-final and final run are added to give the final result.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, boats were made of heavy fiberglass and nylon. The boats were high volume and weighed over 65 pounds. In the early 1970s Kevlar was used and the boats became lighter as well as the volume of the boats was being reduced almost every year as new designs were made. A minimum boat weight was introduced to equalize competition when super light materials began to effect race results. The I.C.F also reduced the width of the boats in the early 1970s. 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.

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