Canoe Slalom

On the Kolna canoeing course

Competition at the Krakow – Malopolska European Games 2023 will take place in three individual and two team competitions. A total of 280 male and female athletes will compete for 10 sets of medals. IE 2023 is also an opportunity to get closer to gaining a pass to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The competition will be a European championships event.

The fight for medals will begin on 29 June, with two finals each over three days and four finals on 2 July. The competition will take place on the Kolna Mountain Canoe Course, which also serves as the Continental Training Centre in slalom canoeing under the auspices of the ICF and the Olympic Preparation Centre of the Polish Canoe Association. Canoe slalom is played on a track or a foaming river current. There are between 18 and 25 gates on the course. The course should be between 200 and 400 m long and the current speed must be higher than 2 m/sec.

Debut at European Games

Canoe slalom was on the European Games programme for the first time. Mountain kayaking as a sport was born in the 1930s in Switzerland. The first official competition, yet on a flat course, was held in 1933.

The International Canoe Federation (ICF) organised the first world championships in 1949. For its Olympic debut, canoe slalom had to wait until the Munich Games (1972). It has been permanently played since the Barcelona competition (1992), but the competitions have changed in the programme of subsequent competitions. And, for example, in 2021 in Tokyo, the men’s canoe duo competition (C-2) was replaced by the women’s canoe singles (C-1).

The European Canoe Federation was established in 1993 and the first European Slalom Canoe Championships were organised in 1996.