Monday photo feature

The Olympic Games in Paris is now in its second week, and that means it's time for some flatwater sprint canoe and kayak racing.  Flatwater paddlers race in lanes from a starting line to a finish line--similar to swimming, except you can actually see the athletes and tell them apart from one another.  The distance between the starting line and the finish line might be 200 meters, or it might be 500 meters, or it might be 1000 meters.

The U.S. flatwater sprint team has not enjoyed much Olympic success in the last 30 years.  In recent Games, the U.S. program has had great difficulty just qualifying to enter athletes.  In Beijing 2008, K1 racers Rami Zur and Carrie Johnson were the only Team USA paddlers in the regatta.  There were only two U.S. flatwater paddlers in the London Games of 2012, too: Carrie Johnson and Tim Hornsby.  In 2016 only one athlete from the U.S., kayaker Maggie Hogan, qualified to compete in the regatta at Rio.  Three years ago in Tokyo the U.S. flatwater team again was just one person, canoeist Nevin Harrison.

So it feels like an embarrassment of riches to have three (three!!!) U.S. athletes getting ready to race flatwater this week in Paris.  The good news is that they're all pretty solid.  Nevin Harrison, in fact, comes in as the defending Olympic champion in the women's 200-meter C1 event at Tokyo; she also claimed world titles in that event in 2019 and 2022.  Competition in her class begins with first-round heats on Thursday.

Meanwhile, newcomers Aaron Small and Jonas Ecker are an intriguing pair.  They'll be teaming up to race 500 meters in a K2, and while I can't really say they're a legitimate medal contender, they could possibly make the "A" final (there will be three heats in the final round, with medals being awarded in the "A" final) with good performances in their rounds of heats.  They're scheduled to race their first heat on Tuesday.  Both athletes will also race the 1000-meter K1 event, for which the first heat is on Wednesday.  Ecker was the 1000-meter K1 champion at the under-23 world championships just a couple of weeks ago, so it's not farfetched to think he could make the "A" final.

The Pan American championships at Sarasota, Florida, back in April was the last chance for athletes from the Americas to secure a berth in Paris, and that's where Small and Ecker punched their ticket with a victory in the 500-meter K2 class.  The image above is a screen-grab from some video footage in which newly-minted Olympians Small (left) and Ecker share their thoughts with an interviewer from one of the local TV stations.

All three of the U.S. flatwater Oympians hail from the state of Washington.  Harrison and Small are from Seattle, Ecker from Bellingham.

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