(By Alex Dodge): A few weeks ago, the US Olympic Trials for slalom kayaking were held at both Alabama’s Montgomery Whitewater and Riversport in Oklahoma City to select the athletes that will be competing for the US later this summer in Paris. And this year there was an additional event to watch, Kayak Cross, in which four athletes at a time seal launch off an elevated ramp to all race together down a slalom course with gates and a mandatory roll under a bar across the course.
It’s a take on a staple of many grassroots river festivals that fits well alongside hooligan races with makeshift crafts trying to simply make it down the river in one piece. But as some have noted it seems to be a poor representation of kayaking and quite out of place as a medaling event at the Olympics. At the same time, it is understandable that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) wants to find a way to utilize these rather expensive artificial courses for additional events beyond just slalom and provide more whitewater events on them.
Subjectively as a kayaker watching one of these boater cross events take place during a slalom race, it appears as a side show for the spectators that have little to no understanding of kayaking. It all seems very performative, especially the mandatory roll in the middle of the course, and does not reflect the athletic prowess of the athletes competing while displaying a significant disconnect by the IOC from the larger extreme, recreational, and freestyle communities of kayakers.
For example, freestyle has been an exhibition event at the Olympics in the past, being given a trial run to hopefully become an official medaling event, but has seemingly been dropped for consideration. And this doesn’t even begin to consider any sort of an event on a natural river, whether that’s a proper extreme creek race, a wildwater race, or something in between. Slalom is already a pretty niche circle within the larger kayaking community in the US, but at least it is respected for the mastery of technique that comes with being an elite slalom athlete. Whereas boater cross is oftentimes a spectacle even at most kayak events in which luck can be just as much of a factor in who wins or loses as skill.
That said, it is understandable that the IOC would want to use these artificial whitewater parks for more than the four events they are currently used for (men’s and women’s kayak and canoe), especially when they cost in the tens of millions of dollars to construct. This desire to host more events on these courses unfortunately eliminates the possibility of hosting any longer or more extreme events on natural rivers.
But why not have freestyle as an official event in the Olympics? Purely speculating here, but perhaps freestyle is unable to meet the IOC’s threshold for minimum number of countries that compete in a sports world championships and is therefore ineligible as per the somewhat arbitrary standard set by the IOC. Or perhaps it’s because freestyle has largely shifted away from looping around in the small holes that are typical of artificial courses, preferring to skip around on larger more dynamic, Ottawa-style wave features that are not easy to produce with the flows provided by the pumps that drive these artificial courses. Or perhaps they have their own reasons tied into athlete caps and the politics of the Olympics. Only the powers that be can answer that question.
So, for better or worse, as the Opening Ceremonies for the Paris Olympics draw near there are athletes preparing to compete in Kayak Cross for the first time in Olympic history. There are those in the kayak community who view this as a disgrace and a bad image to put forward to the world for what kayaking is—that Kayak Cross does not belong on this stage with so many other aspects of the sport that are more representative of the kayaking community being overlooked for the sake of entertaining spectators who know little about the sport. And there are those who are excited to see another whitewater discipline formally added to the Olympics.
The US’s own Evy Leibfarth will become the first American, male or female, with the opportunity to represent this country in three whitewater disciplines at the Olympics, winning her selection races for both kayak and canoe slalom as well as for Kayak Cross, an achievement surely worth noting. And the Czech Republic’s Vit Prindis, one of the most decorated slalom athletes of recent years, will finally get his chance to compete on the stage he rightly deserves to, after getting edged out of the last two Olympics by one of the only athletes with more accolades than him and fellow countryman Jiri Prskavec, allowing him to achieve the Olympic aspirations he’s dedicated so much of his life to.
So only time will tell how it is received by the world at large, but regardless of the opinions of the greater kayak community, these two along with so many more athletes will not be taking Kayak Cross lightly and will be out there giving it their all, something that deserves our respect. And at least it’s not rhythmic gymnastics or curling.