Contrast

Today I rode my bike down to the river and paddled for 60 minutes.

I've long been fascinated by the incredible range of water levels the Mississippi River goes through in any given year.  Right now, with near-record low levels just fifteen months after last year's near-record high levels, I'm as fascinated as ever.

I took this picture from my boat this morning.  These condos overlook the harbor just south of Harbortown Marina.  Today's river level on the Memphis gauge is -9.4 feet (the record low, recorded in July of 1988, is -10.7 feet).

This picture shows those same condos in May of last year, as the river was approaching its crest of 48.03 feet (the record high is 48.7 feet, recorded in February of 1937).

Still enough water to paddle (for now)

This morning I rode my bike downtown and paddled for an hour.  The river level was about -9.1 feet on the Memphis gauge.  The forecast for the coming week has it dropping some, but not below -10 feet.

About a third of the canoe and kayak dock on our marina has run aground.  During "normal" water levels (10 to 20 feet, say), the horizontal distance from the dock to the bank is 50 feet or more.  As you can see here, that distance ranges from zero to about four feet right now.

The water beneath the rest of the marina is becoming alarmingly shallow.  Some of the finger piers are riding up, and I expect some of the deeper-drafting boats are grazing the bottom.

Very, very low

The lowest Memphis gauge reading ever for the Mississippi River is -10.7 feet back in the summer of 1988.  Right now, the level is about -9.4 feet.  I went down there and paddled for an hour this morning, and I'm pretty sure it's the lowest level I've ever paddled at.  The lowest level I can remember in the last decade or so is about -8.5 feet.

It's actually a great level for camping.  With all the sandbars exposed, the choice of sites is just about unlimited.  Martha and I should get out there soon to camp or at least to spend an afternoon exploring the vast expanses of sand.

Meanwhile, even at this near-record-low level, the Mississippi is a very big river.  The French Broad River, which drains a sizable chunk of western North Carolina, is a pretty big river for that part of the world, but the section I paddled last Sunday is no more than a third of the current width of the Mississippi at Memphis, and nowhere near the volume of water.

I promise this post has to do with paddling

Well, now it can be told.  The secret has been declassified.  Where was I last week?  Taking a class at the Country Workshops school of traditional woodcraft in the North Carolina mountains.

It was a coopering class.  "Coopering" is the craft of shaping wood into staves and assembling them to make buckets, barrels, and other vessels.  Old-time milking buckets and beer and wine kegs are examples of vessels that were coopered.  Most modern-day coopered vessels are machine-made, but there are a few people out there still doing it by hand, and the mission of Country Workshops is to keep such skills alive.  In the class I took, all the students made simple buckets; mine is pictured at right.  The staves are eastern white pine, and the two hoops around the bucket are maple.


Coopering is probably the most challenging woodworking endeavor that I have tried to date.  The staves contain compound angles (i.e., a plane is tilted by x degrees on one axis, then by y degrees on another axis) that must be cut very precisely so that they all will fit together snugly and form a nice circle.  Even more challenging is to make the ends of the hoops lock together to form a circle of just the right size to fit around the bucket.  Since the "male" and "female" parts of these locks are at opposite ends of a strip of wood, no "test-fitting" is possible until the strip is steamed and bent to form the hoop.  And so very precise measuring and cutting is necessary to make sure they fit together nicely and form a hoop of the right size.

The instructor for this class was Mr. Carl Swensson of Baltimore, Maryland.  I had taken a class in Japanese woodworking taught by Carl last summer and come away feeling that my skill level had improved markedly under Carl's tutelage, and I eagerly signed up for this class so I could work with him some more.  I am not disappointed with the results.

Carl puts a lot of thought into how people--not just woodworkers, but people in all fields--become skilled.  Here are just a few of the remarks I have heard Carl make in the two classes I have taken from him:

"The highest-achieving people are the ones who do the basics better than anyone else."

"It's better to be focused and precise for one hour than to be less so for many hours."

"The best people are making just as many mistakes as you are, but their mistakes are smaller, and they recover from them more quickly."

"When you find yourself struggling with something, it's foolish to think that just sticking with it for another hour or year or decade is going to make you any better at it.  Rather, you should ask yourself, 'What can I change?  Is my tool sharp enough?  Would a different grip be better?  Should I get help from a book, or a video, or a fellow woodworker, or a teacher?'"

In the class, Carl broke each phase of the project down into steps that at times seemed absurdly small.  To achieve that compound angle on the edge of each stave, he had us use our hand planes to establish an edge at the first angle, then an edge at the second angle.  And each of those steps was broken down into even smaller steps: after marking the lines we wanted to plane down to, we chamfered the edges with a carving knife, colored the chamfers with crayon, and then planed until the crayon had disappeared; in this way we "sneaked up" on a surface that was at the desired angle to the stave's broad face.

All along, we cut a little, then checked the result, then cut a little more, then checked again.  If we made a mistake, we caught it early and corrected it.  In a sense, the project was just "one long repair job."

"Information is king," says Carl, when you start to learn a new skill.  Before you try something you've never tried before, don't start from zero; seek out information in a book, or on a video, or from samples of other people's work.  Many of us can make significant advancements simply by observing and imitating others.  Sooner or later, however, most of us will reach a plateau and will need some further guidance to take our skills higher.

In the early going, a person's work will be slow and probably not so accurate as his brain works hard to process the new information.  But with practice, his response to a mistake becomes quicker, and as a result the mistake is smaller because it has been caught early.  The more automatic this response is, the more accurate the work is.  Think of a highly-skilled woodworker using a saw to cut to a line: when the saw begins to wander from the line, the craftsman senses it immediately and makes the necessary adjustment.  The result is a very accurate cut.  His cut is in fact "one long repair job" just like that of a beginner who cut a little and checks and cuts a little more, but because his response time for little errors is so short, he eliminates that step of cutting and checking, and it appears that he's just making the cut with no errors at all.

During the week we watched a video of Reudi Kohler, a Swiss master cooper, making a bucket.  He was doing all the things to make his bucket that we were doing to make ours, but much more quickly and matter-of-factly.  As Carl put it, he was skipping those intermediate steps that we were following because he had the skill and the experience and the muscle memory to do so.


Okay...  I can hear the groans.  You're all sitting there thinking, "Come on, Holmes, I read your blog because I'm interested in canoeing and kayaking.  What's with all this woodworking stuff?"

Well, I'll tell you what's with it: I think these same methods we used to learn to cooper a bucket apply to paddling, as well as about every other sport.

I can't tell you how many paddlers I've known over the years whose skill level was stagnant because they wouldn't let go of the poor techniques that they had become comfortable with.  I've known paddlers who would drive to the Ocoee every weekend of the summer, run the river two or three times each trip, stop at every playspot and play until they dropped; and yet by the end of the summer, they didn't seem to be any better as paddlers than they had been at the beginning.

The reason they weren't improving is that they weren't seeking better ways to paddle, but rather reinforcing their bad habits.  Furthermore, as their hours on the river mounted each day, they got tired and developed even more bad habits.

I'm not saying it's wrong to spend a day playing on the Ocoee or any other fun river--that's the reason we paddle, after all--but the best paddlers I've known over the years have not relied on that to advance their skills.  For them, paddling is something they do for an hour or two each day, on whatever little river or lake is near their home.  On easy water they're not distracted by big waves and holes and drops, and they can focus on the small things that make up a move or even a single stroke.  They're always asking themselves if there's a better way to do something than the way they've been doing it.

Finding such answers is not always easy.  I know I've been stuck on a few plateaus.

Racing slalom certainly raised my overall skill level.  The idea of having to train for something motivated me to spend some time each day in my boat on easy water here in whitewater-poor Memphis.  I saw surprisingly good results when I made a weekend trip to a whitewater river.

It was in the races that my weaknesses were exposed.  Though I was a good learner by watching the other racers, and my results improved as the years went by, a lot of guys were still getting down the course a lot faster than I was, and it took me a long time to understand why.  Apparently, being in good shape and having solid whitewater skills wasn't enough.

Eventually, attending several training camps and getting some advice from coaches, I began to see what was going on.  The best racers--the ones who were making the national team regularly--had exceptional command of the basic skills that allowed them to concentrate on what really mattered, which was getting to the finish line.  They positioned their boats relative to the direction of the river's current so that every single stroke was a good, strong stroke that propelled them toward the next gate.  I, meanwhile was always sneaking in little rudder strokes and other corrections, so even if my run was penalty-free, it was slow.

It's important to note that a top racer makes lots of mistakes during a run.  But his mistakes are small, and he recovers from them quickly.  If his boat veers off his intended line, he gets it right back on with one stroke or even just some body english.  Just like the master craftsman making a saw cut, he corrects his errors so quickly that it doesn't appear that he's making any errors at all.  A less capable racer (like me) tends to let his errors grow into a major loss of time, and maybe some missed gates as well.

It's been about seven years since I last entered a whitewater slalom race.  But I still think about those racing days quite often: things I learned, things I accomplished, things I wish I'd done better.  At age 45 (as of next Tuesday), I've probably missed my window for challenging Olympic champion Tony Estanguet.  But I've got the eternal itch to go out and paddle my boat as well as I possibly can.

And so, when my coopering class came to an end and I went down the mountain for a day of paddling on Section IX of the French Broad River, I looked for one skill I could work on.  I decided to eddy-hop through each rapid and take precise strokes across the current between eddies.

A stream of current down a river is rarely uniform.  It usually contains ribbons of slack water and other disturbances caused by rocks beneath the surface.  So each time I sat in an eddy studying my path to the next eddy, I asked myself how I could get across the current in the smallest possible number of strokes.  I planned my strokes according to the strength and direction of the current, and made the crossing to the next eddy trying to use only the strokes I needed.  Just as taking one pass too many with a hand plane can throw a woodworking project off course and require extra time and energy, one stroke too many with a paddle can throw the boat off course and require extra time and energy.

Between the rapids I drifted along and enjoyed the beauty of the gorge that the river cuts through the mountains on its way to Tennessee.  I was getting tired with a couple of miles to go, so I eased up on the drilling and popped a few enders at Frank Bell's Rapid before completing the journey to Hot Springs.  I took out with that happy feeling of having done something I value and enjoy.

I probably won't be re-entering the slalom circuit, so the top racers in the U.S. may rest easy.  But it sure was fun to spend a week in the mountains contemplating my skills in the workshop and on the river.

Signing off for a few days

There will be no new posts here for the next week to ten days, during which time I will be off in my secret bunker that no wireless signal can possibly penetrate.

Thank you to everybody who has been following along.  Goodbye for now, but I hope to have something to say when I return.

Olympic paddling concludes with 200-meter finals

The last day of racing at Eton Dorney produced four more Olympic champions.  They are the first ever at the 200-meter distance.

In K1, Ed McKeever of Great Britain, who trains on Dorney Lake, emerged from a crowded field to take the gold as a delighted home crowd looked on.  Spaniard Saul Craviotto Rivero won silver and Mark de Jonge of Canada took the bronze.  Hungary and Germany may be the superpowers of flatwater sprint, but paddlers from Britain, Spain, and Canada have acquitted themselves very well in this regatta.

Tim Hornsby of the United States finished seventh in the B-final to earn 15th place overall in 200-meter K1.

In C1, Yuri Cheban of Ukraine had a great start and the rest of the field found itself playing catch-up from the beginning.  There just isn't much room to come from behind in a 200-meter race, and Cheban kept his lead all the way to the finish.  Jevgenij Shuklin of Lithuania took the silver and Russia's Ivan Shtyl' claimed the bronze in this sweep for the former Soviet bloc.

The female kayakers were up next, and 23-year-old Lisa Carrington of New Zealand, who came in ranked number one in the world in this event, capped her outstanding season with Olympic gold.  She was joined on the podium by two ladies who had already medaled in 500-meter events earlier in the week: Inna Osypenko-Radomska of Ukraine in second and Natasa Janics of Hungary in third.

The final event was the K2, and the Russians were just too good.  They didn't have the best start, but Yury Postrigay and Alexander Dyachenko quickly moved into the lead and won the race in dominating fashion.  Belarussians Raman Piatrushenka and Vadzim Makhneu won the silver, and the home crowd got to celebrate once more as Liam Heath and Jon Schofield of Great Britain took the bronze.

And with that, the final Olympic paddle stroke has been taken until 2016.  About 330 athletes took part in the slalom and sprint events at the London Olympics.  The great majority of them will now go home empty-handed.  And that's not a bad thing: winning an Olympic medal is, and should be, a rare feat achieved by a select few.  Those who do not medal should be regarded with dignity for having "fought well," as the Olympic Creed states.

The other day I mentioned that Arezou Hakimimoghaddam of the Islamic Republic of Iran was the lone woman eliminated from the heats of the 500-meter K1W, and I hope nobody thought I was snickering at that; I was not.  My guess is that being a female athlete in Iran is not the easiest thing to do, and yet, as NBC announcer Tim Gannon remarked after she was eliminated from the 200-meter heats yesterday, around the venue she never failed to have a smile on her face.  THAT is what we need to be celebrating when the Olympics rolls around every four years.

Life goes on away from the Games

This morning my nephew Joel and I watched some of NBC's taped coverage of the 200-meter action from Eton Dorney.  This afternoon, we decided to go out paddling ourselves.  After all, watching is fun, but doing is better.

The last time Joel and I paddled the tandem together, we paddled up the Mississippi to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  Today we decided to go downriver to the trio of old bridges (the newest of which is the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, built in the late 1940s).

We looped around the western-most bridge pilings and paddled back up the Arkansas side.  A towboat was moving upriver above us, and when it was time for us to ferry back across the river we had its wake to deal with.  It was a bumpy ride, and I said to myself, "Stay relaxed, Joel... stay relaxed, Joel."  Then I said it out loud, and he did what I said.  I praised him for a job well done once we were safely back in the harbor.

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.

Olympic sprinters wrap up the longer distances

Today we saw four more sets of medals awarded in the Olympic flatwater sprint regatta at Eton Dorney, Buckinghamshire.

The men's tandem canoeists started things off with their 1000-meter final.  If you like buff men putting their fluid power on display, this is your class.

Azerbaijan's Sergiy Bezugliy and Maksim Prokopenko bolted out to the lead and held it for 750 meters.  But they couldn't hold it for another 250, and the German pair of Peter Kretschmer and Kurt Kuschela powered into the lead.  Kretschmer/Kuschela pulled away to win the gold; the Azerbaijanis strained to hold on for a medal but were overtaken just a few meters from the finish by the Bahdanovich brothers of Belarus and Russians Alexey Korovashkov and Ilya Pervukhin.

Next came the incredible speed of the K4 class.  Legend has long had it that a world-class K4 can pull a water skier, and today NBC showed some taped footage from yesterday of a K4 doing just that.

But it was all business today as the eight finalists lined up for the 1000 meters.  Australia had had the fastest time in the semifinal round, and they charged out into the lead in today's final.  Reigning world champion Germany was in close pursuit, as were Hungary and Slovakia, the two teams that had advanced straight to the final from the heats.

The Europeans were all hoping the Aussies would fade, but they never did.  Surf-lifesavers-turned-flatwater-racers Tate Smith, Dave Smith, Murray Stewart, and Jacob Clear did their part to help their nation turn the tide after a disappointing first week at these Games--Australia has now won four gold medals in various sports this week.  Smith, Smith, Stewart, and Clear are only the third non-European foursome ever to win the 1000-meter K4.

Behind the Aussies, Hungary held on for the silver, and the Czech Republic came on strong at the end to edge Germany for the bronze by about three tenths of a second.  The Slovaks faded to sixth.

Eight women paddled up to the starting line for their 500-meter final.  Italy's 47-year-old Josefa Idem, an eight-time Olympian, was the sentimental favorite, but the competition was formidable.  Beijing gold medalist Inna Osypenko-Radomska of Ukraine was in the field, as was the silver medalist at last year's worlds, Hungary's Danuta Kozac, and the bronze medalist at the 2010 worlds, Rachel Cawthorn of Great Britain.

As Kozac took the early lead, Osypenko-Radomska challenged the conventional wisdom with her awkward-looking form.  I've always been taught to sit up straight in the boat to get maximum leverage on my strokes, and I've spent many hours on the water trying to get it right.  But Osypenko-Radomska leans way forward in her boat, almost slumped over.  It seems to work for her, and she was in contention the whole way.

Kozac was too strong for the others in the end.  Osypenko-Radomska held on for silver, and South Africa's Bridgitte Hartley edged out Sweden's Sofia Paldanius for the bronze.  Idem ended up fifth.

The last race of the day was the women's 500-meter double kayak final.  Katalin Kovacs and Natasa Janics of Hungary were looking to win their third straight Olympic gold.  But the other flatwater sprint superpower, Germany, had a pretty good pair in Franziska Weber and Tina Dietze, and these girls took the pace out hard and won the race, beating Kovacs/Janics by more than a full second.  The Polish pair of Karolina Naja and Beata Mikolajczyk survived a hard-charging Chinese team of Yanan Wu and Yu Zhou to win the bronze.

NBC has posted a set of highlight videos here.

And so the "long" races of this flatwater sprint regatta are now over.  The next two days will see the 200-meter distance make its Olympic debut.  It's one more chance for the United States to make a mark in this European-dominated sport, as Carrie Johnson of San Diego and Tim Hornsby of Atlanta will both race single kayak.

More niece and nephew paddling...

...and we're not talking about corporal punishment.  No, my niece Rachel and my nephews Joel and Ben, who are visiting from North Carolina, were on pretty good behavior as we did some paddling in the harbor late yesterday afternoon.  Joel, the oldest at 14, paddled a solo touring boat while Ben and Rachel took turns paddling in the tandem boat with me.  Having Joel in another boat gave me a chance to look at his stroke.  I gave him some tips to work on, and he did so like the scholar he is.  Meanwhile, Ben, who just turned ten, is getting stronger: I could actually feel some power in his strokes in the seat behind me.  Now I just need to get him to keep his body still and not rock the boat so much.  Longer arms will help: our tandem boat is very wide at the stern seat, and I think Ben had to keep shifting right and left just to get his blades in the water.

So that's what's been going on here in Memphis, far from the Olympic spotlight.  It was my second time in the boat this week; I also paddled for an hour on Sunday morning.  The rest of this week, when I haven't been trying to make sense of the Olympics competition, I've been busy with the minutiae of life.

Finals in four flatwater sprint events

It's time to start awarding some medals at Eton Dorney, Buckinghamshire, site of the canoe sprint regatta for the London Olympics.

First up today was the 1000-meter men's single kayak.  The two favorites coming in were Canada's Adam van Koeverden, who likes to go out strong but smooth and gradually lengthen his margin over the rest of the field, and Germany's Max Hoff, who typically relies upon a strong second-half surge after sitting in the pack early on.  Hoff had reigned as 1000-meter world champion for two years before van Koeverden took over the title last year.

Today's final shaped up just as expected: van Koeverden had nearly a boatlength lead at 250 meters and crossed the 500-meter mark approximately on pace for a world-best time.  Hoff, meanwhile, was back in the pack but working his way up.

In the end, neither of them took the gold.  Eirik Veras Larsen of Norway, who had retired from the sport but decided to come back out when his wife made the Norwegian Olympic team, paddled a very strong second half and surged into the lead with about 50 meters to go.  It was a second Olympic gold for Larsen, who won this event in 2004 and took silver in 2008.  Van Koeverden held on for silver and Hoff emerged from the pack to win the bronze.

In the 1000-meter C1 final, rising star Sebastien Brendel of Germany won the gold medal in dominating fashion.  The 24-year-old Brendel won bronze medals at the world championships in 2009 and 2010 before failing to finish this event because of a broken paddle last year.  Spain's David Cal came from nowhere to claim the silver, and is now Spain's most successful Olympian in any sport.  Cal has quite a collection of silver medals, having now won two at the Olympics to go with three in world championships competition.

Canadian Mark Oldershaw, whose father and grandfather both were Olympians in flatwater sprint, won bronze.

The nation of Hungary is, by far, the all-time medal leader in canoe sprint, and it added another gold today as Rudolf Dombi and Roland Kokeni won the 1000-meter K2 event.  By contrast, Portugal had never won a canoe sprint medal until today's second-place finish by Fernando Pimenta and Emanuel Silva.  Andreas Ihle and Martin Hollstein took the bronze.  Ihle, 33, is a three time world championships medalist in this event with three different partners; he won the worlds with Hollstein in 2010.

Hungary wasn't finished.  In 500-meter K4W, the Hungarians sprinted out to a lead and survived several challenges before pulling away to win.  Germany won the silver, Belarus the bronze.  The Polish women finished about two tenths of a second out of the medals after setting a world best in the semifinal round on Monday.

NBC has posted a set of videos of today's racing that everybody is allowed to watch.  Watch them here.

More medals will be won tomorrow, as the 1000-meter C2, 1000-meter K4, 500-meter K1W, and 500-meter K2W will race their finals.

Olympic sprint continues with more 1000m, 500m heats and semis

Day Two of the Olympic sprint regatta saw heats and semifinals in 1000-meter men's four-person kayak, 1000-meter men's double canoe, 500-meter women's single kayak, and 500-meter women's double kayak.

Only ten boats were entered in 1000-meter K4.  The winners of the two preliminary heats, Slovakia and Hungary, advanced straight to the final, while the other eight boats battled it out in a single semifinal heat.  There, Australia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Russia, Romania, and Denmark earned the right to compete for medals in Thursday's final, and Serbia and China were eliminated.

The fastest time of the day was Australia's 2:52.505 in the semifinal.  That's just shy of 13 miles per hour on average.

The 1000-meter C2 was also a small class, with only twelve boats entered.  The winners of the two opening heats, Germany's Peter Kretschmer and Kurt Kuschela and Azerbaijan's Sergiy Bezugliy and Maksim Prokopenko, went straight through to Thursday's A-final.  The Azerbaijani tandem has won two of the last three silver medals at the world championships.

The remaining ten boats competed in two five-boat semifinals, with the top three in each making the A-final, the rest the B-final.  The most accomplished boat among these was the Romanian pair of Liviu Dumitrescu and Victor Mihalachi, world champions in 2010 and bronze medalists at the worlds in '11.  They finished a comfortable third in their semi to make the A-final.

Next came the 500-meter K1W event, and a field that included one of the two U.S. athletes in this regatta.  Carrie Johnson of San Diego had no trouble making it out of the heats.  With 25 paddlers entered in this class, only one would be eliminated in the four preliminary heats (that unfortunate person was Arezou Hakimimoghaddam of Iran).  The rest would fill out three eight-boat semifinal heats.  In each semifinal, the top two would advance to the A-final, with an additional two advancing on the basis of their times.  Two more from each semi would make the B-final, plus two based on time.

Surely the most compelling story in this event is that of Italy's Josefa Idem, who is competing in her eighth Olympic Games (a record among women) at age 47.  Idem raced for West Germany in 1984 and 1988; then, after meeting and marrying her current coach, Italian citizen Guglielmo Guerrini, she has competed for Italy from 1992 until now.  Overall she has won five Olympic medals, including a gold in 500-meter K1W in 2000.  She was also world champion in 1990 and 2001.

In her semifinal today, Idem was in sixth place at the 250-meter mark, but finished strong to win the race and move on to the A-final.  Joining her in the A-final will be 2011 world silver medalist Danuta Kozac of Hungary and 2010 world bronze medalist Rachel Cawthorn of Great Britain.  Sadly, Carrie Johnson was the fastest paddler not to make either the A-final or the B-final, finishing sixth in her semi.

The final event today was the 500-meter K2W.  With 17 boats entered and two eight-boat semifinals, once again there would be one unlucky pair eliminated in the heats, and that turned out to be the Japanese team of Shinobu Kitamoto and Asumi Ohmura.

The Hungarian team of Natasa Janics and Katalin Kovacs is one to watch in this event.  As Greg Barton wrote in this article for Bloomberg,

The biggest story on the women’s side is Natasa Janics. A native of Serbia, Janics competed for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 2000 Olympics and then moved to Hungary. In 2004, she won gold medals for Hungary in both the 500-meter singles and 500-meter doubles (with partner Katalin Kovacs). In 2008, Janics and Kovacs repeated their gold-medal performance in Beijing. After taking time off to have a child in 2011, Janics is again the gold-medal favorite in the 200-meter singles and has a chance for a third Olympic victory with Kovacs in the 500-meter doubles.

Tomorrow the first flatwater sprint medals will be awarded for this Olympics.  We'll see finals in 1000-meter men's single kayak, 1000-meter men's single canoe, 1000-meter men's double kayak, and 500-meter women's four-person kayak.

Greg Barton in the news, both real and fake

Greg Barton, who won four medals (two of them gold) while competing in flatwater sprint for the U.S. Olympic team in the 1980s and 90s, has written this article for Bloomberg in which he encourages folks to check out his sport in the current Olympics.

Greg has also found himself credited with a fabricated quote in this Wall Street Journal article.  He has announced on his Face Book page that he never said what the article says he said.

Greg's Olympic career may be over, but he's still paddling as avidly as ever.  He competed in the U.S. surf ski championships over the weekend, and finished 13th overall and second among U.S. citizens.

UPDATE: (from Greg Barton's Face Book page) Apparently the Wall Street Journal mistakenly credited Greg with a comment made by his teammate on the 1992 Olympic team, Chris Barlow.  Barlow points out, however, that he did not call Darren Sproles a "pipsqueak."  The Wall Street Journal has said it will run a correction.

Olympic canoe sprint, Day 1: Favorites move through

The first day of sprint competition on Dorney Lake saw heats and semifinals in four events: 1000-meter men's single kayak, 1000-meter men's single canoe, 1000-meter men's double kayak, and 500-meter women's four-person kayak.  And in each event, top athletes of the last several years positioned themselves for a shot at medals.

The event took place in the early morning hours of Central Time, but NBC showed some tape-delayed coverage later in the morning here, and I saw the semifinals of all the classes except K4W.

In the K1 and C1 classes, the top four boats in each semifinal moved on to Wednesday's A-final, where the medalists will be decided.  There will also be a B-final on Wednesday to determine places 9-16.

In 1000-meter K1, reigning world champion Adam van Koeverden of Canada had the day's best time while winning his semifinal, and 2009 and 2010 world champion Max Hoff of Germany won the other semifinal.  The two have contrasting styles, van Koeverden taking long, smooth strokes while Hoff's strokes are short and choppy, almost ugly.  Either way, the men move their boats at impressive speed and appear ready for an exciting showdown on Wednesday.  Others making the A-final included Beijing Olympic silver medalist Eirik Veras Larsen of Norway and 2011 world silver medalist Ander Gustafsson of Sweden.  Reigning Olympic champion Tim Brabants of Great Britain made the A-final too, but just barely: he was the last boat to advance out of his preliminary heat, and in his semifinal he faded out of the top four in mid-race, only to mount a furious charge at the finish to take fourth by less than a tenth of a second.

Next came the 1000-meter C1 event, and I have to say that Olympic flatwater canoeists are truly some impressive physical specimens.  All world class paddlers are quite muscular and fit, of course, but the canoe flatties really have that Mr. Universe look.  There's no better example than reigning Olympic and world champion Attila Vajda of Hungary: his torso looks like a stack of bricks, and anybody who thinks paddling is done strictly with the arms needs to watch Vajda propel his boat forward with his massive quadriceps muscles.

Vajda actually settled for second in his semifinal, just doing what he had to do to make Wednesday's A-final.  The German Sebastien Brendel, a two-time world bronze medalist, won the semi.  David Cal of Spain, silver medalist at both Beijing and the 2011 worlds, took third, and Uzbekistan's Vadim Menkov, world champion in 2009 and 2010, finished fourth.  The other semifinal did not feature such heavyweights, but included paddlers to watch in Mathieu Goubel of France and Mark Oldershaw of Canada.

In 1000-meter K2, the winning boat from each of the two preliminary heats advanced straight to Wednesday's A-final.  2010 world champions Martin Hollstein and Andreas Ihle of Germany won the first heat, and Rudolf Dombi and Roland Kokeny of Hungary won the second.

The rest of the boats raced in the two semifinals, with the top three in each making the A-final.  2011 world silver medalists Markus Oscarsson and Henrik Nilsson of Sweden won the first semi, and reigning world champions Peter Gelle and Erik Vlcek of Slovakia took the second.  2010 world bronze medalists Ilya Medvedev and Anton Ryakhov of Russia also moved through to the A-final.

The 500-meter K4W event was the only one NBC did not show in its on-air coverage, so I did not actually see what happened there.  With only eleven boats entered, the two heat winners went straight to the A-final, and everybody else raced in one semifinal, with the top six making one eight-boat final, and the other three teams eliminated.

Poland's foursome finished last in its heat (albeit with the sixth-best time among the eleven K4Ws).  So it was on to the semifinal for them.  But there, they uncorked a world-best time of one minute, 30.338 seconds.  On average, they were moving their boat at about 12.38 miles per hour.

Eric Giddens, a U.S. Olympian in whitewater slalom kayak back in 1996, continues to be the analyst for NBC this week.  I think he is doing a nice job even though sprint was not his specialty.  He's one of the people I admired back when I was racing slalom: not only was he an exceptional athlete, but also he brought a very keen intellect to the job.

Tomorrow, four more classes will go through this heat and semifinal routine: 1000-meter men's four-person kayak, 1000-meter men's double canoe, 500-meter women's single kayak, and 500-meter women's double kayak.  A U.S. athlete will compete for the first time tomorrow, as Carrie Johnson of San Diego will race the women's single kayak event.

Monday Photo Feature

I took this picture of Greg Barton back in 2001 when he was in town for the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  Note the funky shape of his boat right behind the cockpit.  Its purpose was to bring the boat into compliance with the ICF's minimum width requirement that was in effect through the 2000 Olympics.  The ICF did away with minimum widths after that.

The Olympic flatwater sprint regatta begins today with 1000-meter and 500-meter heats on Dorney Lake, Buckinghamshire.  Here in Memphis it's supposed to be on the air (Channel 5) from 10:30 to 11:00 AM and from 12:45 to 1:00 PM.  Every athlete will paddle up to the starting line with dreams of doing what Barton did: winning an Olympic gold medal.

Flatwater sprint at the Olympics

It's time to turn our attention to the flatwater sprint regatta for the London Olympics.  It runs tomorrow through Saturday at Eton Dorney, Buckinghamshire, near Windsor Castle.  Canoe sprint made its Olympic debut in the 1936 Berlin Games, and has been part of every Games since.

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.

Dog days

This hasn't been the hottest week of the summer, but it's been the sort of week I dread as August approaches each year in Memphis.  The heavy, humid air just sucks the energy out of you.

Well, like I've said before, I can't change it, so I might as well immerse myself.  This morning I rode my bike down to the marina and paddled for 80 minutes.  My friends Joe and Carol Lee were down there, so we paddled together and caught up on things.

I feel very sluggish during oppressive stretches like this, but I figure if I get myself in my boat that's at least one good thing I've accomplished for the day.

More on K1W

NBC has now posted some great footage of the women's kayak final--you get to see most of the finalists take their runs.  So after writing yesterday's post without really even knowing what I was writing about, I'll fill in a few details here.

Reigning two-time world champion Corinna Kuhnle of Austria lost her chance at the podium at Gate 5, where she missed the gate and had to loop back for it.

Jana Dukatova of Slovakia, the top-ranked K1W in the world coming into London, made no major mistakes, but just a lot of little ones that cost her time all the way down the course.  Jessica Fox's currently-leading score was apparently very good indeed, considering that as great an athlete as Dukatova could not match it.  Dukatova's run finished off a very disappointing Olympic slalom for Slovakia: her failure to medal, combined with bronze-medal performances by Michal Martikan and the Hochschorner brothers, was like the U.S. coming away from the Olympic swim meet with nothing but a couple of bronzes.

Maialen Chourraut of Spain, another world-leader coming in, had a very respectable run.  S Her biggest mistake that I noticed was that she came in too high on the dive gate at #18 and had to backpaddle to set up for the surf across to #19.  That might have cost her the silver or gold.

And for Emilie Fer of France, it was a moment of redemption.  She had been considered a medal contender in Beijing, only to take an inexplicable 50-second penalty at Gate 2 in the final there.  At Lee Valley yesterday she went out and simply did all the right things, and now she has a gold medal for her efforts.

And so the 2012 Olympic slalom race is in the books.  Now I get a couple of days off from trying to look like an expert on this blog before the flatwater sprint regatta starts on Monday.  Thanks to everybody who's been reading all this.  A couple of you have made very nice comments and I appreciate that.

I'm still paddling, too

All eyes, including mine, are on the paddlers in London for the Olympics.  But I'm still doing my thing here at home.  No TV cameras, no raucous fans in the stands... just me in my boat in this heavy, humid, uncomfortable air that's been hanging over the Mid South all week.

It's the offseason for me now, as I've said before, and I'm just going out several times a week for an hour or so at a time (I paddled for 70 minutes this morning).  Mostly I'm just trying to relax and enjoy the outdoors, though I'm always working on that stroke.  Always, always, always.

Women's kayak: a second gold for France

The final slalom medals of the 2012 Olympics were awarded today at the conclusion of the women's kayak class.  At this time I haven't seen any actual footage (nothing's up yet on NBC's Olympic website).  I only know the results, which are posted here (semifinal) and here (final).  So I'll start with some back-story.

Coming into these Games, the world's two top-ranked female kayak racers, Jana Dukatova of Slovakia and Maialen Chourraut of Spain, seemed to be competing on a higher level than anybody else.  And they provided us a classic contrast in paddling styles.  Dukatova is tall (5'11") with long arms that extend far over the bow of the boat, and paddles with long, smooth strokes at a rather low rate.  This makes her appear slower than she actually is.  A casual observer might watch her on the course and conclude she's not a contender, only to be surprised to see her name atop the leader board.  Chourraut, meanwhile, is a petite 5'3" and uses short, fast strokes to hammer her way down the course.

The captivating rivalry between these two had made K1W the most interesting class to watch for many fans this spring.  Coming into London, a couple of others were generating buzz: Austria's Corinna Kuhnle came in as the reigning two-time world champion, and Štěpánka Hilgertová of the Czech Republic, the sentimental favorite competing in her sixth Olympic Games, was looking as good as she'd looked since her gold medal performance in 2000.

These ladies and six more made the semifinal cut and lined up for the final today.  And as happened in the other classes this week, the race defied the world rankings.

Hilgertová took the early lead with a penalty-free run, but quickly gave it up to Australia's Jessica Fox.  Fox, the daughter of slalom royalty (her father is Richard Fox, the legendary K1 racer, and her mother is Myriam Jerusalmi, a two time world champion and Olympic medalist in women's kayak), had been racing well this season, but not quite at the same level as Dukatova and Chourraut.  But her clean run was nearly three seconds faster than Hilgertová's.

Fox and Hilgertová continued to hold the top two spots as the next four racers, among them Kuhnle and Dukatova, could not better their scores.  Then it was Emilie Fer's turn, and the Frenchwoman, ranked only seventh in the world coming in, laying down a clean run that was 0.41 second faster than Fox's.

Chourraut came next and took over third place, knocking Hilgertová out of the medals.  The final paddler, Poland's Natalia Pacierpnik, was much slower than she was in the semifinal, with a two-second penalty.

And so with Fer's victory, it was a second gold medal for France in this Olympic slalom.  Fox, only 18, made her first big step toward matching her parents' excellence in the sport with her silver medal.  And Chourraut's bronze medal capped the best slalom Olympics ever for her country: Spain also got a fourth-place finish in C1 by Ander Elosegi and a fifth-place finish in K1 by Samuel Hernanz.

Additional C2 notes

Somebody was asking me why the C2s aren't faster than the C1s.  Running the same course in the semifinals and finals this week, the top C1 times were around 96 seconds, whereas the top C2s were finishing about ten seconds slower.  Why is that?

Well, yes, you do have the extra power of another paddler in the boat, but you've also got the extra weight of that other paddler.  And then the C2 itself is a longer, wider, heavier boat.  It's a little harder to get a C2 up to speed than a C1, and it's also harder to get it stopped, meaning that it takes a bit more care and precision coming into those tight turns in the upstreams and places like that.

C2 teams also have to be careful to get both paddlers' bodies through each gate.  If one paddler's body passes through the gate but the other paddler's body doesn't, that's a 50-second penalty, as if the boat had missed the gate entirely.

A great C2 like the ones that medaled today has both paddlers working as one most of the time.  But the laws of physics work against them more than they do against the single-boat racers.

NBC is starting to post some C2 highlight videos on its Olympic website.  Go check them out.  You can watch the joyful Brits frolicking in the water here.  I was hoping it would include the official yelling "Out!  OUT!" but it doesn't.  The medal ceremony is here.  I love how the medalists all get up together on the top step of the podium after the winner's national anthem is over.  There's a real camaraderie among slalom racers that cuts across national boundaries.

Men's double canoe: a British feast

NBC kept its promise and showed about a half-hour of slalom on the air this morning.  It was the final of the C2 class, and the way it unfolded, I was reminded that no amount of political and commercial nonsense can kill the Olympic spirit entirely.

C2 is the smallest of the Olympic slalom classes, and I'm not surprised that it is.  It's hard enough to reach the world-class level in any sport; to coordinate that effort with another person, and spend years building the familiarity between partners that the best C2s have, is a daunting task indeed.

The final of this smallest of classes contained only six boats.  But they put on as good a show as anybody in this Olympic slalom.

Everybody was watching Pavol and Peter Hochschorner of Slovakia; already the greatest C2 of all time regardless of what happened today, they wanted to put that final exclamation point on their unbelievable career.

Meanwhile, the British were hoping to salvage what had been a disappointing showing up to this point: none of their entries in the other three classes had made it past the semifinal round.  Thanks to a quirk in the rules, they had two boats entered in the C2 class.  The team of David Florence and Richard Hounslow had won the British selection trials, but as each of these paddlers had already made the Olympic team in another class--Florence in C1, Hounslow in K1--they were not adding to their nation's overall canoe/kayak body count.  And so the British were allowed a second C2, manned by Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott, in the Games.  (The Czech Republic also had two C2s in Lee Valley, as their top C2 contained their K1 Olympian, Vavrinec Hradilek, and their C1 Olympian, Stanislav Jezek.  Both Czech C2s competed in the semifinal today but did not make the final.)

Baillie and Stott had finished sixth in the semifinal, so they were the first boat on the course in the final round, and they uncorked a superb run that was more than two seconds faster than the top semifinal run.  The bar had been set high, and a Chinese team, a Polish team, and a French team all made good shots at it before falling short.

Then came the Hochschorners, who had been solid, but unspectacular, in qualification and in the semifinals, doing just what they had to do to move on to the next round.  But now the racing was for real, and these winners of the last three Olympic gold medals and five-time world champions were holding nothing back.  "They look like they're trying now," said NBC color analyst Eric Giddens, a slalom Olympian himself in 1996.

Then, at Gate 16, came a very un-Hochschorneresque moment: coming out of the upstream gate, sternman Peter brushed the inside pole with his forearm.  The seasoned pair continued on as if nothing had happened and finished an excellent run that was 0.13 second faster than that of Baillie/Stott, but the two-second penalty knocked them back to a distant second place.

With their other C2 the only one left up at the start, the British were guaranteed the gold medal.  Florence and Hounslow were outstanding in their attempt to make it theirs, but crossed the finish beam just 0.36 second slower than their teammates.  They didn't seem to care.  The four Brits were soon out of their boats and splashing around deliriously in the water.  Their coaches joined them, and with the British fans dancing in the stands, joyful anarchy seemed imminent until a race official ran down to the riverside screaming "Out!  OUT!!!"  The women's kayak final was set to begin, so there was no time for this infernal mucking about.

All the while the Hochschorners sat on the bank in a state of disbelief, much as their countryman Michal Martikan had done after failing to win the C1 class two days earlier.  The TV camera also caught the fourth-place French team, who had hoped to add another Olympic medal to their country's proud tradition of C2 excellence.  Bowman Gauthier Klauss appeared to be sobbing.

And so the C2 final had it all.  Triumph.  Heartbreak.  Redemption.  The semifinal results are here.  The final results are here.

Men's kayak video

If my comments on yesterday's K1 final seemed less specific than those on the C1 final Tuesday, it's because I hadn't yet actually seen any footage of what had taken place.  This morning I finally found a video of Molmenti's winning run, here.  I had to click through to a more obscure part of NBC's website to find it.  Molmenti is certainly a flamboyant personality as well as a powerful athlete.

I first became aware of Molmenti several years ago when I saw this video, in which he demonstrates his techniques for doing upstream gates in various situations.  I was impressed with his incredible control during those tight turns.

You can watch the K1 medal ceremony here.  All three medalists look positively delirious.  And why not?

An interview with flatwater Olympian Mike Herbert

Today is the final day of whitewater slalom, with the men's double canoes and women's kayaks competing in their semifinal rounds as I write this.

Once that's over, we'll have several days off from Olympic paddling.  Then, the flatwater sprint regatta will begin on Monday at Eton Dorney, Buckinghamshire.

A TV station in northwest Arkansas has posted this interview with one of the greatest athletes in that region: Mike Herbert, a three-time Olympian in flatwater kayaking who very nearly won a medal at Seoul in 1988.  Mike, who lives in the town of Rogers, has become a good friend of mine as he and I have raced together all over this part of the country in the last decade.

Men's K1 at the Olympics

Daniele Molmenti of Italy claimed the gold, the Czech Republic's Vavrinec Hradilek the silver, and Germany's Hannes Aigner the bronze in the men's kayak class today at Lee Valley White Water Centre.

Unlike the slalom canoe classes, men's kayak has had very few dominant figures.  The great Richard Fox of Britain, who won five gold and six overall medals at the world championships from the late 1970s through the early 90s, is the only person to have ruled the class in the same way Jon Lugbill, Michal Martikan, and Tony Estanguet have ruled C1.

Since Fox's retirement, we've seen a small number of paddlers hang around near the top for extended periods--people like Scott Shipley of the U.S. and Paul Ratcliffe of Great Britain in the 90s, and Fabien Lefevre of France, Peter Kauzer of Slovenia, and Molmenti in this past decade--but no single paddler or pair of paddlers has emerged to perform on a higher plane than everybody else in the world.

It's crowded at the top in K1.  Peter Kauzer, winner of two of the last three world championships, was in first place after the semifinal round today, but when he faltered in the final, there were plenty of guys right there to take advantage.

Sooner or later, I expect somebody will come along who separates himself from the rest of the world like Richard Fox did during his career.  But it just doesn't happen often, and I think maybe that's because K1 has the most participants worldwide of all the slalom classes.

The results of the semifinal round are here.  The results of the final round are here.

After sticking to the program schedule on its website for two days, NBC let me down today.  I went over to my mom's house to watch today's scheduled coverage from 1:30 to 2:00 Central Time (I don't own a working TV, you'll recall), and canoe slalom was nowhere to be found.  I hope they don't do that again tomorrow, when coverage of the C2 and K1W semis and finals is supposed to be on TV from 9:15 to 9:40 AM Central.