Kayakers Hopeful, But Realistic About Rio Venue Legacy

(ATR) Kayakers who navigated the swift and demanding whitewater current during the men’s K-1 event at Whitewater Stadium would like to believe that the state-of-the-art Olympic venue, and the sport, have a future in Brazil.

Brazilian kayaker Pedro Da Silva stole the show during Wednesday’s afternoon competition contested under cloudy skies at the X-Park in Rio’s Deodoro zone. The 23-year-old paddler from Sao Paulo exceeded expectations to finish sixth.

Da Silva, who led the event in the early stages of the final, hopes his performance will inspire Brazilians and grow the sport in his homeland.

"I have two dreams – to go for Olympic gold and make my sport more popular in Brazil," Da Silva told Around the Rings shortly after his race.

"I hope this result - my sixth place on the planet will help make this possible," Da Silva said. "The venue is amazing and I think Brazil has a good project with this venue."

The course and venue is expected to be utilized for elite level training and recreational paddling after the 2016 Olympics.

Great Britain’s Joseph Clarke, 23, won the K-1 event with an error free run on the 250-meter, 24 gate course clocking just over 88-and-a-half seconds.

"The venue here is absolutely one of the best in the world, the paddlers like it and I’ve done a lot training camps it has become a second home for me," Clarke said. "Hopefully, they have a legacy – it would be fantastic get more people involved with it."

Veteran Slovenian kayaker and Rio 2016 silver medalist Peter Kauzer noted that the venue legacy will benefit from the world championships here in two years.

"Hopefully, kids enjoyed our racing and hope to get them involved as much as possible because it’s good for the community here in Brazil and Deodoro."

Giving Back To Rio

New Zealand paddler Mike Dawson, who has built relationships with Rio locals by handing out food parcels in the city's favelas along with local kayaker Pepe Goncalves, offered his perspective on the Brazilian city and the venue’s sustainability.

"It’s been pretty eye opening coming here – it’s a city of two contrasts," Dawson said. "It’s amazing you see the crowd and the people and they’re really behind the Olympics and it’s amazing for Rio, but outside that there are a lot of people living in poverty having a hard time getting by.

"We’ve kind of tried to meet them and share in their moments a little bit and hopefully they can share in our moments on the sport field and we can leave some sort of legacy."

"This venue is world class – it’s been built really well and it’s kind of an evolution of slalom venues, it should be pretty cheap to run," said the Kiwi kayaker.

Development of Whitewater Stadium & the Future Ahead

Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes declared in 2014 that when it came to building Olympic venues, "The most difficult is to create an artificial river for the slalom canoeing competition."

At one point, Rio 2016 organizers considered saving money and scrapping the project. The alternative was holding the canoe/kayak event some 700 kilometers away in Foz do Iguaçu.

The International Canoe Federation (ICF) was adamantly against the proposal and fortunately for the athletes it never happened.

Whitewater Stadium and Deodoro X-Park have been constructed upon Brazilian Military training grounds that were handed over for the Olympic project.

Determination in Deodoro proved that robust design and project management, technical expertise, and stakeholder input can combine to deliver a great project, a superb venue and substantial legacy possibilities.

The 250-meter long canoe/kayak artificial whitewater course has been created between a series of hills, splicing the course with an artificial lake to create permanent sporting and tourist heritage.

American Michal Smolen, 23, said similar to previous Olympic artificial whitewater venues, maintaining it could be difficult.

"I hope so, I really do because the way things have been looking from some of the previous Games – it’s not good, the courses are not used," Smolen said when asked if the sport has potential with the use of the venue.

"You never know what’s going to happen – it’s the sport, the cost of building such a facility is high and it’s tough to maintain after," the U.S. paddler said.

"Having another venue to train on in South America would be really cool."

Written by Brian Pinelli in Deodoro

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