Olympic debut for 200 meters (and one more screed... sorry)

Today four classes had their heats and semifinals at the 200-meter distance: men's single kayak, men's single canoe, women's single kayak, and men's double kayak.

Having debuted in the 1994 world championships, the 200 meters is an Olympic distance for the first time.  Previously, the men raced 500 and 1000 meters in the Olympics and the women raced 500 meters only.  So while the women have one new race on the Olympic programme, men who previously had specialized in the 500 meters have had to decide whether to move up to 1000 meters or down to 200 meters.

This is where paddlesports seem a little incomplete to me.  Nobody would ask Usain Bolt to run the 1500 meters when he's the best 100-/ 200-meter dash man ever.  Nor would Mo Farah be expected to run the 400-meter hurdles rather than the 10,000 meter run, which he won last weekend.  That's the great thing about track and field: there's a place for nearly every type of athlete there is.  (That's why "athletics" is often used as alternative name for this sport.)  If you're speedy, you enter the short sprints and the long jump; if you're muscular and powerful, you enter the throwing events; if you're lean and resilient, you run the long distances; if you're acrobatic, you do the pole vault or the high jump; and so on.

Of course, track and field is the marquee sport of the modern summer Games, and probably the ancient Games as well.  And canoe and kayak racing has nowhere near the level of participation worldwide that the running and jumping and throwing events do.  But it's a shame that at least a little more latitude isn't available for paddlers in the Olympics.

Outside the Olympics, there is more latitude.  In the world championships, flatwater sprint includes 200-, 500-, and 1000-meter events for both genders, and more boat classes (C4 and K4 for all distances, and now a canoe class for women).  And then there are other disciplines under the ICF umbrella for paddlers with different athletic gifts: marathon (in which the boats are about the same as in sprint, but paddlers race much longer distances with portages), whitewater slalom, wildwater (in which paddlers race straight down whitewater rapids), freestyle (formerly known as rodeo), even kayak polo.

But right or wrong, the Olympics, with its advertizing money and TV cameras, drives everything.  Sports change themselves to make themselves more appealing to the IOC.  The flatwater world championships used to include a 10,000-meter event, but replaced that with the 200 meters because the shorter distance televises better (and, more importantly, allows for more frequent commercials).  Slalom has made numerous changes as well, shortening the courses and almost completely abandoning natural-river venues for the big international events.  Over on NBC's Olympics website, writer Mike Pescaro comes right out and says it: "Just as sprints in track and field, these [200-meter] races have the potential to grab mass excitement and emotion for very brief periods of time, and that is an intriguing concept."   While I consider short sprinters just as legitimate as longer-distance athletes, their events clearly are being favored for their appeal to the lowest common denominator of the population--those with the shortest attention spans and the need for instant gratification.

Meanwhile, the ICF and most national governing bodies like USA Canoe/Kayak pour nearly all their resources into the Olympic disciplines.  That means if your athletic gifts are best suited for wildwater racing, don't expect any support from anybody besides your parents or your significant other.

None of this is to suggest that the 100 paddlers who lined up to race 200 meters on Dorney Lake today didn't belong there.  They most definitely did.  But they represent an incomplete snapshot of all that's really going on in canoe and kayak racing.  For every 100-meter runner on the track, there's a middle distance runner, a long distance runner, a hurdler, a thrower, a jumper... why can't our sport have that same representation?

Now, I expect many people will say I'm just being a silly idealist here.

As a matter of fact, yes, that's exactly what I'm doing.  But why shouldn't I?  The Olympic movement itself is based on idealism.  The Olympic Creed says no less than this: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."  I don't see anything there about medal counts or advertizing dollars or appealing to a mass audience or any such thing.  In the ancient world they supposedly put wars on hold so the warriors could compete in the Olympics, for crying out loud.

So yes, I'm being idealistic here.

Well, here in the 21st century we do have a cure for outrage over all the injustice in this world: pipe down and watch some TV.  So that's what I did this morning.  The actual racing was over before I was out of bed, but NBC showed tape of all the heats and all the semifinals on the air in the late morning here, and it was exciting to watch.  There's not much room for tactical maneuvering in the 200 meters; you've got to have a good start and then just paddle as hard as you can for the next thirty to forty seconds.

Tim Hornsby of the United States had a rough start to his Olympics in men's single kayak.  Already low in the seedings and placed out in Lane 8 at the far right end of the starting line, Hornsby lined up one lane to the right of that, and the field had to wait while he repositioned himself in the proper lane.  It was probably a case of nerves for the rookie Olympian, and the distraction likely was to blame for his poor start moments later.  Fortunately the heat was a fast one, and Hornsby advanced to the semifinal round on the basis of his time.

Carrie Johnson of the U.S. also advanced in K1W, squeaking through with a sixth-place finish in her heat.

The biggest surprise in the preliminary round came in the C1 class, in which reigning world champion Valentin Demyanenko of Azerbaijan finished last in his heat and failed to advance.

The semifinal round for K1 consisted of two heats, with the top four in each advancing to the A-final tomorrow, the rest to the B-final.  Among those making it through to the A-final were the silver and bronze medalists at last year's world championships, Ed McKeeverof Great Britain and Ronald Rauhe of Germany.  2011 world champion Piotr Siemionowski of Poland will have to settle for the B-final and no better than ninth place.  Tim Hornsby met that fate as well, finishing last in his semi.

In C1 there were three semifinals, with the top two in each making the A-final, plus the next two best times.  Russian Ivan Shtyl' and Spaniard Alfonso Benavides are the 2011 world championships silver and bronze medalists, and they both made it through to tomorrow's medal round.  So did Frenchman Mathieu Goubel, who finished sixth in the 1000 meters earlier this week.

K1W had three semifinals and followed the same advancement format as the C1s.  Hungary's Natasa Janics, who finished second in 500-meter K2W with partner Katalin Kovacs yesterday, is among the A-finalists, as is Inna Osypenko-Radomska of Ukraine, yesterday's 500-meter K1W silver medalist.  Carrie Johnson finished last in her semifinal, bringing her third Olympic Games to an end.

In K2, the three medalists from last year's world championships all made the A-final: Arnaud Hybois and Sebastien Jouve of France, Jonathon Schofield and Liam Heath of Great Britain, and Raman Piatrushenka and Vadzin Makhneu of Belarus.

For anybody who is interested, the fastest time of the day was 32.051 seconds by Russians Yury Postrigay and Alexander Dyachenko in their K2 semifinal.  Their average speed was just a hair under 14 miles per hour.