Canoeing-Paris experiences excitement of kayak cross before Olympic debut

VAIRES-SUR-MARNE, France : Paris got a taste of kayak cross on Sunday, when the World Cup drew capacity crowds to witness the excitement of this extreme canoe slalom event in which competitors battle for position though rapids and gates.

Kayak cross will make its Olympic debut at the 2024 Games in Paris, and locals got a flavour of what to expect, at the white-water Olympic stadium of Vaires-sur-Marne.

France's Boris Neveu and New Zealand's Luuka Jones won gold, in the race where four competitors charge down the river and race to be first across the finish line, similar to ski cross or BMX.

"The average viewer or non-expert viewer engages much more with this format, they immediately see that things are happening," Jean-Michel Prono, technical chairman for canoe slalom at the International Canoeing Federation, said.

"There is opposition, there are shocks, there are changes," he added.

Canoe slalom appeared for the first time at the 1972 Munich Olympics and definitively entered the Olympic programme at the 1992 Barcelona Games. But athletes were competing against the clock, and not each other.

The excitement starts from the very beginning where racers launch from a platform several metres high.

"So a kayak cross event begins with a four-person ramp jump. The ramp here is almost five meters high, it accelerates very hard," Frederic Rebeyrol, France's head coach said.

From there on, it is a dash to the first buoy, which paddlers need to negotiate downstream or upstream. Opponents fight each other to be in the best position and anything goes in order to do that.

"From the first turns, you have to strategically position yourself to take the trajectory and be ahead of the competitor. Here we are not in a race against time," Rebeyrol