Sprint canoe

C-1 in Kharkov river

A sprint canoe is a canoe used in International Canoe Federation canoe sprint. A sprint canoe is a light, narrow, open boat propelled by one, two or four paddlers from a kneeling position, using single-bladed paddles.^[1]

History

Canoeing was a demonstration sport at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. It was the first time that the sport was part of the Olympic program. The French Olympic Committee asked the Canadian Olympic Committee to demonstrate the sport in Paris. Races were arranged between the Canadian Canoe Association and the Washington Canoe Club from the United States. Events were held for C1, C2, and C4.^[2] Canoeing has been a medal sport since the 1936 Games in Berlin where C1s and C2s raced. 1924 was the last time C4s were raced in the Olympics.

The trend is towards reducing the course distance. Early races were staged over 1,000 and 10,000 metres for men and 5,000 metres for women. Today, they are over distances of 200, 500 and 1000 metres. For the 2012 Games in London, the 500m events were replaced by 200m events.

Women's canoe debuted internationally at the 2010 championships in Poznań, Poland, although there is still no woman's canoe in the Olympics. Women's C1 will be an event at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.

Equipment

Boats are symmetrical along the length and are only paddled on one side, so to avoid going in circles, a J-stroke is used.

ICF boat types are C-1, C-2, C-4. C stands for Canadian. In the past, in Europe kayaks were known as canoes, while canoes were known as Canadian canoes. The number stands for the number of crew. ICF boats:^[3]

There is a couple of variants raced widely in North America. The Canadian C4 is wider than the ICF boat. The ICF C4 is also raced in North America. The non-ICF C-15 (War canoe) is found mostly in North America.^[4]

Up to the year 2000^[5] there was a regulation that a canoe had to have a minimum width of 75 cm, which led to boats flaring out above the water line to meet that requirement. These canoes were known as deltas, and have a diamond-shape, viewed from above. A popular example was the Struer Delta, designed in 1956.^[6] The restriction was dropped soon after Plastex began manufacturing boats with wings.^[7]

References