The sprint venue has already seen Olympic competition: the rowers raced there during the first week of the Games. I caught several rowing heats on TV and enjoyed seeing people riding alongside the course on bicycles (they were probably coaches and other credentialed folks). I expect we'll see some more of that when the kayakers and canoeists are on the water.
The "flatties" will race distances of 200 meters, 500 meters, and 1000 meters. If you think of the standard 400-meter track over at your local high school, 200 meters is half a lap of the track; 500 meters is one-and-one-quarter laps; and 1000 meters is two-and-a-half laps. Some people might not consider these distances to be all that daunting, but the sprint competitors will argue otherwise. Their races are short enough that one must race at near-maximum intensity the whole way, but long enough to require considerable strength and endurance as well. My experience racing over such a distance is to want to barf up my breakfast at the finish. Sprinters train by logging thousands of miles to build an endurance base and perfect the forward stroke. They pile plenty of speed work, pace work, and start practice on top of all this mileage.
Flatwater features a few more boat classes than slalom. The sprinters race C-1, C-2, K-1, and K-1W, but they also have K-2 and K-4 for both men's and women's competition. The format is similar to that of swimming. Floating ropes will divide Dorney Lake into eight lanes. Each class and distance will consist of a preliminary heat, a semifinal, and a final. The number of semifinals in each event will depend on the overall number of athletes entered in that event.
The United States has two sprint athletes entered in this Olympics: Carrie Johnson of San Diego will race in 500-meter women's single kayak (heats and semifinals Tuesday, final Thursday) and 200-meter women's single kayak (heats and semifinals Friday, final Saturday); and Tim Hornsby of Atlanta will compete in 200-meter men's single kayak (heats and semifinals Friday, final Saturday).
The canoes and kayaks must be no more than 520 centimeters long for singles, no more than 650 cm long for doubles. The four-person kayaks may be no longer than 1100 cm. The reason sprint boats have a maximum length, rather than a minimum length like slalom boats have, is that the clock stops on a boat when the tip of its bow breaks the plane of the finish line. Also, generally speaking, a longer boat is a faster boat on flatwater, so a maximum length keeps everybody equal on that score.
The minimum weights are as follows: 12 kilograms for single kayaks; 18 kg for double kayaks; 30 kg for four-person kayaks; 16 kg for single canoes; and 20 kg for double canoes.
The ICF used to impose minimum widths on flatwater boats. Clever designers responded with "flares" or "bat wings" above the waterline that met the minimum width while keeping the hull much narrower (and therefore faster). Boats really started looking ridiculous in the 90s when the ICF started allowing concave lines in boat designs. Finally, the ICF threw up its hands and said "Fine! No more minimum width! If you can race 200 meters or more in a boat the width of a pencil, more power to you!" And so, paddlers may now compete in boats as narrow as they want.
Hungary and Germany both have proud traditions in canoe sprint, and lead the world in the all-time Olympic medal count. I expect their athletes will be in the hunt for more medals this week. The U.S. has won five gold medals in the 17 Olympic regattas, the most recent being in Seoul in 1988, when Greg Barton won the 1000-meter K1 event and teamed with Norm Bellingham to win the 1000-meter K2 event. Barton won a bronze in 1992 to bring the U.S.'s all-time medal count to its current number, 16.
* * *
So... who are the better athletes, whitewater paddlers or flatwater paddlers? That question has no answer, because it's an apples-to-oranges comparison. The two sports are as different as swimming is from diving. Certainly, we're talking about two different types of athletes: most slalom racers are the type of people who would also be good at sports like gymnastics, freestyle skiing, and wrestling, while flatwater sprint racers are more in the class of athletes that includes cyclists, swimmers, and runners.
But the two disciplines are not completely dissimilar. I took up flatwater and open-water kayaking after spending a few years racing slalom, and many of the little things I learned in slalom have proven very helpful in what I'm doing now.
In slalom, at every moment on the course, you want to have your boat and your body positioned so that you can put full power into every stroke. If you're approaching an upstream gate, and you're teetering off-balance at the crest of a wave, you won't be able to put all your power into propelling yourself toward that gate because your muscles are busy trying to keep your boat upright; or if your boat isn't pointed just the right way, you're using muscles that should be paddling the boat forward to correct its course. And so the best slalom racers are the ones who can study a course, map out in their minds every move their bodies and boats will make at every instant on the course, and then execute those moves flawlessly.
In flatwater racing, there are no waves, eddies, or holes. And the only way the boat ever needs to be pointed is toward the finish line. The kayakers even have a crutch for that: a little thing called a rudder. So sprint seems like a snap compared to slalom.
But it's not that simple. Just like in slalom, you want to have all the muscles in your body working together to put maximum power into each stroke. And while your muscles don't have the distractions on flatwater that they do on whitewater, there are still a couple of distractions, the biggest one being that the boats are tippy. As I said above, a narrower boat is a faster boat, so a flatwater racer paddles the narrowest, tippiest boat that he can handle. You have to get comfortable enough in the boat that the muscles in your hips, butt, and legs can keep it upright without being distracted from their roles in propelling the boat forward. (For many racers, it's worth paddling a more stable boat, even though it's theoretically slower, in order to get more power in the strokes.) You also don't want your boat bobbing up and down or yawing or rocking left and right. So expect to spend mile after mile after mile in practice trying to control all those things in harmony with a powerful forward stroke. At the intermediate level, you'll find you can do a good number of strokes in a row, but then you have to stop and do a brace. If those moments become less and less frequent over time, then you're making progress.
Sprint canoeists have a real challenge: their boats are just as tippy as the kayaks, and they paddle in the "high kneel" position (one knee up, one knee down) where their center of gravity is higher. And on top of that, they have no rudders, so they have to perfect the J-stroke to the point that it keeps the boat going straight while barely slowing it down. It takes most athletes many years to get this technique in order, so the top canoeists tend to be a little older than the top kayakers. The many complexities of high-kneel canoeing scare many people away, so sprint canoeists are a small fraternity, sort of like the hammer throwers in track and field.
So flatwater sprint is pretty darn technical. Not quite the variety of techniques that slalom requires, but more a matter of performing a strong, fluid, efficient movement with your body, at very high intensity, a few hundred times in a row.
Anyway, be sure to tune in. Just like the slalom event, flatwater sprint will be full of magnificent athletes, compelling stories, and high drama. The full schedule for the regatta is here. 1000-meter and 500-meter events will take up the first four days, and the last two days will see all the 200-meter events.
nice
ReplyDelete