The full article with results and points is available now on the Sportscene website .
David Florence sets the pace at Lee Valley for GB 2013 team selection
Selection for the Great Britain canoe slalom team continued today at Lee Valley in Hertfordshire, where more than 1,000 tickets have been sold to the weekend races. David Florence, this time in C1 in which he won a silver medal at the Beijing Olympics again demonstrated his mastery of this water with an impressive run on the Lee Valley White Water Centre course. This event follows two weeks after the first two selection events at the Holme Pierrepont artificial slalom course in West Bridgford, Nottingham. The athletes racing for selection to the Great Britain senior and U23 teams are ranked at the end based on points from their best three results from the four races. The fourth and last selection race is on a tricky new course at Lee Valley tomorrow (Sunday April 28th). In many classes there is still much to play for and the paddlers wil again be aiming for fast and clean runs.
Scotland’s Fiona Pennie now living close to Lee Valley winner of race 3
It was great to see Fiona Pennie close to her best form with a commanding second run to lift her to win at Lee Valley and secure two wins from the three selection races so far this month. It was in a new boat to which she has had only one week to get accustomed; successfully clearly! These selection races determine the senior paddlers (3 boats per class) that will be eligible to compete at the World Championships in Prague in September as well as the European Championships and World Cup races across Europe this summer. A separate under 23 (U23) team of paddlers will also be selected for separate World and European championships. Tune in tomorrow to watch. Live results are available at www.canoeliveresults.com or visit the GB Canoeing website John @gregiej
Today’s attention shifts to describing the basics of the canoe slalom course and the techniques used to negotiate the course, after having reviewed each of the four Olympic canoe slalom classes in turn this week.
A simplistic illustration of a river with canoe slalom gates (reproduced from ‘go slalom canoeing’ leaflet by Laura Blakeman & Etienne Stott)
The goal for the slalom paddler is to race as fast as possible from the start gate to finish, negotiating up to 25 slalom gates without touching them. The ‘gates’ must be negotiated in numerical order and they can be divided into downstream gates identified with green and white poles and upstream gates identified by red and white gates. I will spend a later post studying the detail of the rules and how they are judged but simply a two second penalty is incurred for touching one or both poles of a gate and 50 seconds is added to the run time for missing or incorrectly negotiating the gate.
In basic terms, the green gates are positioned in the current of the river flowing downstream and the red and white gates are positioned in slack water behind obstructions called eddies. See the sketch alongside, which shows two red and white upstream gates and four downstream gates. The water is flowing from top to bottom. In Olympic competition there should be 18-25 gates in total of which at least 6 must be upstream, identified with red and white poles. The rules have changed recently, previously the gate was always 1.2 metres wide, however now the two poles can be separated apart and so in an upstream breakout only one pole may be suspended 20cm above the water (the other is suspended over the bank). As mentioned before the C1, and C2 to a slightly lesser extent, are advantaged/ disadvantaged when the red and white upstream is on the left of right depending on whether the paddler is left or right handed. The course designer must ensure the course design is balanced to challenge all competitors equally. The course also needs to be designed so that it is feasible for all four classes of paddler to successfully complete it. Good course design offers paddlers different options on how to complete in the fastest and cleanest way. Paddlers will be challenged especially on big whitewater like Lee Valley and use a full combination of forward, backward, turning and maybe even rolling!
All four classes compete on the same sequence of gates. There are a core set of slalom gate ‘moves’, which are describe below:
C1 Dan Goddard negotiating red and white upstream gate breakout (photo courtesy of John Gregory)
The breakout is the technique used to negotiate the upstream gate positioned in an eddy. The paddler needs to manoeuvre themselves from the downstream current into the eddy, through the gate and back into the downstream current. Simple! Well not quite. Slalom paddlers will have spent thousands of hours in a kayak practicing this single manoeuvre by the time they reach the Olympics. It is possible to gain or lose significant seconds over your competitors based on how well or tightly this is performed. The ultimate is to paddle hard tight behind the gate, use one turning stroke to turn while negotiating the gate and pull yourself immediately back into the downstream current. In the newer 350cm length kayaks and C1s this has become much more achievable. It does, however, take lots of practice, balance and advanced whitewater skills. I recommend watching the paddlers helmet because the best slalom paddlers are never stationary but maintain a certain amount of boat speed and momentum.
Fiona Pennie on a left hand breakout using a bow rudder stroke (photo courtesy of Michael Barnett)
Sometimes, two upstream gates will be positioned on opposite sides of the river in numerical order and the slalom paddler can use a technique called ferry gliding or surfing to paddle from one side of the current to the other without being washed downstream.
In canoe slalom the stroke used to negotiate the upstream gate is called a bow rudder, accompanied by powerful turning/ sweep strokes. There are defined techniques for doing an upstream in 3 strokes and 5 strokes depending on the position of the upstream red and white gate within the eddy. In essence the goal is to approach the upstream wide in and exit tight to the exit pole, trying to avoid dropping too far below the upstream gate on entering the eddy or spending too much time in the eddy above the gate after exiting as this slows down the paddlers run.
The stagger or offset is a sequence of green and white downstream gates which are spread across the width of the current. This is much tougher than on first appearance. Try it, without touching any of the gates. Tomorrow I will describe Scott Shipley’s interpretation and coaching advice. If the stagger is too tight then the paddler may have to spin their kayak (or canoe) around before paddling through the gate. The good slalom paddler will define their line through the stagger gates so they can maximise their boat speed.
In this simple world, breakouts are always in perfect static eddies and downstream gates are always in the current. Well that would be too easy so the course designers will test paddlers but placing upstream gates so that there may be some current flowing down through them. Equally downstream gates can be placed in the eddy, so this challenges the athlete to keep the kayak or canoe running downstream when it naturally wishes to turn around. Let me explain, when a kayak paddles from the current into an eddy at a 45 degree angle, the water at the front of the kayak is stationary, while the water affecting the back of the kayak is moving downstream. This causes the back of the kayak to overtake the front and therefore the kayak turns round to point upstream. Considerable time can be lost on the breakout gates.
There are some great resources now available to learn the basics of whitewater paddling and slalom techniques. These include, the BCU Canoe Slalom Technique Library www.slalomtechnique.co.uk videos, Scott Shipley’s great book ‘Every Crushing Stroke’, plus other resources such as the BCU ‘Canoeing Handbook’, ‘Slalom Canoeing’ by Gary Nevin in 1987, Bill Endicott’s legendary books ‘To Win the Worlds’ and the ‘Ultimate Run’, as well as YouTube of course. Although the sport and boat design has evolved the basics of good whitewater paddling technique and the common mistakes have changed relatively little!
Tomorrow’s post will look at the more advanced or refined slalom techniques that you would expect to see amongst the Olympic level competitors on the Lee Valley course.
Ladies kayak deserve their own day and post rather than rolling into one K1 post. Yesterday took a first look at the four different classes with K1M. Today – is K1W (pronounced kay-one-women), meaning a female athlete paddling a single one seater closed cockpit kayak. Again let’s look at the equipment, pros and cons and some top paddlers past and present to look out for.
Great Britain’s K1W Fiona Pennie at the Cardiff World Cup race (photo courtesy of Michael Barnett)
Ladies (women’s) kayak are worthy of true recognition as they paddle the same 350cm kayaks as the K1M, on the same whitewater and through the same set of slalom gates. If you want to see the best use of whitewater watch the K1W. They have narrower shoulders and less muscle mass and shorter levers. Their paddles (blades as we call them) are invariably about 10cm shorter. Ladies thus rely less on brute strength and more on good technique and using the water to help them negotiate the gates. There have been a few exceptions Margit Messelhauser (1985 Augsburg World Champion) was incredibly strong and Liz Sharman had great speed and a longer paddle. Liz was the only slalom paddler I can recall to compete in the Olympics in sprint canoeing (Seoul 1988)! In his book ‘Every Second Counts’, Jimmy Jayes described that K1W were doing an average 70 strokes per minute in the gates and up to 80 strokes per minute at the start and finish, so less than the men, partly because they also tend to hang on to the stronger for a longer time. I recall going with Alan Edge, Rachel Crosbee (nee Fox), Karen Like (nee Davies), Lynn Simpson and Maria Francis to meet Professor Craig Sharpe at Northwick Park (BOMC) for the first ever physiology testing in canoe slalom. I remember that Karen had the least strength, lowest endurance, and least speed of the four, however, it should be noted she won the Bala Mill Prem the next weekend and has a K1W team bronze medal from the 1985 Worlds in Augsburg. That is not to say that women are not as physically fit as the men. At this level the K1W are also out for early morning whitewater training before a rest and a second session in the afternoon like the men.
There is a significant move by the International Canoe Federation (ICF) and national federation to gender equality. The number of female athletes in canoeing, including canoe slalom is increasing as well as in leadership roles within technical committees. As we will discuss tomorrow, a ladies category was introduced in C1 in 2009. This has not yet become an Olympic category and the C2 event is still a men’s class, but one expects that this will change in time too.
One to watch. Australia’s Jessica Fox at Cardiff World Cup race. What would Bill Endicott make of this? (photo courtesy of Michael Barnett).
Great Britain has also shown consistency in K1W at the Worlds since 1979.
The GB World Championship individual K1W medallists are:
Liz Sharman (Silver 1979 Jonquiere, Gold 1983 Merano & Gold 1987 Bourg St Maurice), Jane Roderick (Silver 1983 Merano), Lynn Simpson (Gold 1995 Nottingham), Fiona Pennie (Silver 2006 Prague) and Lizzie Neave (Bronze 2009 La Seu d’Urgell).
GB Team K1W medallists are:
Liz Sharman, Jane Roderick & Susan Small (Silver 1981 Bala), Liz Sharman, Jane Roderick & Susan Garriock (Silver 1983 Merano), Liz Sharman, Gail Allen & Karen Davies (Bronze 1985 Augsburg), Maria Francis, Rachel Crosbee & Lyn Simpson (Bronze 1993 Mezzana), Lynn Simpson, Rachel Crosbee & Heather Corrie (Silver 1995 Nottingham & Bronze 1997 Tres Coroas), Heather Corrie, Rachel Crosbee & Amy Casson (Bronze 1999 La Seu d’Urgell), Helen Reeves, Laura Blakeman & Heather Corrie (Bronze 2002 Bourg St Maurice & bronze 2003 Augsburg), Heather Corrie, Kimberley Walsh & Laura Blakeman (Silver 2005 Penrith), Fiona Pennie, Laura Blakeman & Lizzie Neave (Bronze 2007 Foz do Iguacu) and Lizzie Neave, Louise Donnington & Laura Blakeman (Gold 2009 La Seu d’Urgell).
GB Olympic K1W medallist is:
Helen Reeves (Bronze 2004 Athens).
Lizzie Neave on the Cardiff Whitewater course at World Cup 1 (photo courtesy of Michael Barnett)
As you can see from the above Lizzie Neave already has one World Champions K1W team bronze and an individual bronze medal. As mentioned before, Lizzie became British K1M champion in 2005 as a junior showing us her true future potential. See my previous posts for my Punters Guide to Olympic Form and analysis of the paddlers from other nations to watch. Stepanka Hilgertova (Czech Republic) is a double Olympic champion and Corinna Kuhnle (Austria) is only the second K1W paddler to win two successive World Championships. Tomorrow’s post will look at the C1.
Canoe Slalom blog 