Athens 2004 Olympic Games Whitewater Slalom
by Cathy Hearn
Technical Director, Slalom
Italian Federation of Canoe & Kayak
The nature of rivers is that they flow to the sea. The 2004 Olympic Whitewater
course appears as an opalescent turquoise serpent overlooking the sea from which
it arose. Taking its water from the Saronic Gulf, the course rises up from its
holding lake and tumbles back again in a tortuous coil at the site of the old
Athens airport.
The Olympic course and its extensions of warm-up lake and training channels are
constructed of concrete, local rock, and plastic obstacles, which fit into
concrete pegboards, set into the bed of the river. This system, like the one
for the Sydney 2000 Olympics, allows for easy movement of the obstacles, making
it possible to create an almost infinite number of rapids of differing
complexity and difficulty. Indeed, the course design team has experimented
extensively with the obstacle configurations, giving training athletes a new
river for each workout during part of the Olympic preparation.
The saltwater flowing in the Olympic course in Athens foams more easily than
does freshwater, making this a fantastically bright and white stretch of
whitewater. That brilliance coupled with the salt provides a new challenge for
the eyes of the competitors, and puts new value on the kinesthetic skills
necessary for great whitewater paddling.
The field of competitors for the 2004 Olympic Slalom events has been selected from an original group of more than 160 athletes from nearly 70 countries, with qualifying opportunities at the 2003 World Championships in Augsburg, Germany, and at the 2004 World Cup on the Olympic Course in Athens. The International Canoe Federation has worked in concert with established whitewater nations to develop athletes and programs from at least 40 nations new to whitewater Olympic slalom competition, resulting in qualification race participation by nations such as Togo, Thailand, Algeria, India, Taipei, Kazakhstan and Romania, to mention but a few.
Athletes contending for the medals in Athens will include those who have already
collected Olympic and World medals, as well as those who have only recently
achieved their lifelong goal of reaching the Olympics. Favorites in the men's
kayak include such big-water specialists as the American Scott Parsons, Canada's
past World Champion David Ford, and past Olympic medalists Pierpaolo Ferrazzi
(Italy) and Thomas Schmidt (Germany). The women's field is arguably the
strongest ever, with nations like Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Great Britain
earning less Olympic spots than they have women who could win medals.
Challenging these and other nations' champions will be American Rebecca Giddens,
who has demonstrated extraordinary strength, water sense and performance smarts
in collecting past medals. In the canoe classes, the Germans, French, Slovaks
and Czechs have again had their medal potential curtailed as they have less
Olympic spots than they have excellent boaters. Chris Ennis, with a strong
slalom history, including a world junior medal will represent the US in the C1
event. The US C2s proved their solidarity of skill as they battled as a trio,
with the young team of Larimer and Babcock qualifying an Olympic spot for the
US, which was ultimately claimed by past Olympic Champion Joe Jacobi and his
partner Matt Taylor.
The 2004 Athens Olympic Slalom course is bordered
by a spectacular steep curved wedge of spectator stands which afford clear views
of the course from all sections. The atmosphere during the Olympic competition
will surely be charged with excitement and noise, the cheering of the spectators
mixing with the music of the whitewater, and augmented by the lively and expert
commentary of announcers Lamar Sims and Kent Ford, both from Colorado.
Approaching the whitewater center in Athens, the
first impressions are of a green oasis, the scent of moving water on the wind,
and then the view of the turquoise jewel that is the paddling complex. Close
up, the breeze carries salt spray, and the course appears luminescent and alive
in its movement. The water has the most fantastic ocean feel in river form-- the
features are somewhat soft while at the same time packing substantial punch, and
some of them are very weird, with the variable water and boils of a big river in
flood. Best of all for new paddlers and veterans alike is the comfortable
climate, warm water, and safe nature of the course.
The real beauty of artificial courses like the one built for the Athens 2004 Olympics is the legacy of whitewater that carries on beyond the event. A course like this one, and the one in Sydney, constructed in areas with no natural whitewater, make both the active and spectator versions of whitewater sport accessible to many people who otherwise might never experience the beauty, joy, challenge and reward of playing in and around rivers.
