Canoe Slalom for the Uninitiated

A canoe slalom race involves manoeuvring your canoe or kayak through a series of 18-25 gates suspended above whitewater rapids. A gate consists of two poles. There are green gates and red gates. Paddlers must pass through green gates in a downstream direction and red gates in an upstream direction. The challenge is not touching a gate with any part of your body, boat or paddle, as this incurs a two second penalty; i.e. 2s will be added to your elapsed time, for each gate touched. Missing a gate incurs a 50s penalty, usually pushing you toward the bottom of the placings.


Upstream gate	Downstream gate

Each athlete completes two runs of the course and both times are added together – so it pays to be consistent. The athlete who goes through all the gates in the correct order and direction, in the shortest amount of time (over the two runs), gets the gold medal.

At the international level, every athlete does two qualification runs. According to the qualification results, a proportion of the athletes go through to the semi-final and the rest are out of the competition. Before the semi-final starts, the race course is changed. The semi-final is one run only, and the top ten athletes go through to the final. The finalists complete a second run, which is added to their semi final run time to determine the placings.

As there is no practicing the race course the challenge is to visualise, from the river bank, how you will negotiate through each gate. Once you’re racing you have to be manoeuvring through the current gate but thinking about the next gate and how you’re going to get to it. It’s a tough mental and physical sport. When your first run doesn’t go to plan, you have to put that behind you, focus on how you will do it next time and believe in yourself.

Confused? Click here for a glossary of terms.