FILE PHOTO: Team GB athlete Joe Clarke trains at Lee Valley White Water Centre in Waltham Cross, Britain, May 23, 2024. REUTERS/John Sibley/File Photo
(Reuters) - The addition of the thrill of kayak cross races and an increased focus on gender equality will be the main changes the canoeing events at the Paris Games as some well-known names return looking to add to their medal hauls.
In all, athletes will compete in 16 events across the canoe slalom and canoe sprint disciplines, with the 2024 programme spiced up by the addition of head-to-head races in the kayak cross event, which is being featured for the first time.
The desire of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to attract a younger audience is evident in the introduction of sports such as climbing and skateboarding to the Games and kayak cross is intended to do the job for water-based sports.
Replacing the men's and women's K1 200-metre sprint races, the kayak cross event will begin with timed solo runs before introducing a frenetic element of head-to-head competition as four racers face off against each other.
With athletes all vying for position on the course and placings changing rapidly, contact is almost inevitable and races tend to be packed with drama.
"It's the head-to-head element that really gets people on the edge of their seats," Britain's world champion Joe Clarke told Reuters. "You see people have a terrible start, but go from first to fourth in an instant."
Intriguingly, all athletes are also required to complete a "kayak roll" in a specific zone on the course, rotating their entire craft and ducking their heads under water to demonstrate their technical prowess.
Clarke and Australia's Jessica Fox are among the favourites to grab the inaugural gold medals in the event, but the chaotic nature of the four-person races makes them almost impossible to predict.
LION'S SHARE
Germany and Hungary took home the lion's share of the medals in Tokyo, with the Germans winning seven medals overall while the Hungarians took three golds, two silver and a bronze.
New Zealand's Lisa Carrington will be looking to add to her personal haul of five golds and one bronze - including two medals won on the same day in Tokyo - as part of her country's six-person canoe sprint team in Paris.
Fox will also be bidding for back-to-back gold medals in the women's canoe singles at a Games which has special resonance for her as the France-born daughter of an Olympic medal-winning French mother.
The International Canoeing Federation (ICF) announced in March there would be an equal number of males and females in the sport at the Games with even the 48-strong team of international technical officials now split equally between the sexes.
"It is crucially important that we achieve 50-50 representation across all levels of paddle sport," ICF president Thomas Konietzko said in a statement.
"We are working very hard to increase the number of women in leadership roles at international, national and club level, as this is vital for the future of our sport."
The events will be held at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, some 30 kilometres west of central Paris, with the slalom events taking place between July 27 and Aug. 5, and the sprint events between Aug. 6 to 10.
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor, additional reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
