Our Goals – What and When:

2014vision womens canoe 2

  • Sprint World Championships/World Cups: include 5 women’s canoe events (C1 & C2 200, C1 & C2 500, C1 5000 ). Current program only C1 200 & C2 500
  • Youth Olympic Games – Sprint C1 200, Slalom C1 – ACHIEVED
  • Asian Games – include Sprint C1 200 & C2 500 (Slalom not on program)

2015

  • Sprint World Championships/World Cups, 9 Sprint women’s canoe events equal to men.
  • Toronto 2015 Pan American Games – C1 200 & C2 500 Sprint. (C1 200 ACHIEVED)
  • European Games – include C1/C2 500 & 200m. (Slalom not on program)
  • All Africa Games – include C1/C2 500 & 200m. (Slalom not on program)

2016

  • Rio Olympics – Women’s Canoe Sprint C1 200 & Slalom C1
  • All Continental and National Championships – women’s canoe events equal to men’s canoe and canoe events equal to kayak (K1/K2/K4, C1/C2/C4)

2018 – Youth Olympic Games – women’s events & distances equal to men, both disciplines.

2020 – Tokyo Olympics – Balance between Canoe & Kayak and Men & Women – events and distances, at all levels of the sport

A Sport/Federation name which accurately represents our Sport: i.e., change the name of the sport from “Olympic Canoeing” to “Olympic Canoe/Kayak” and the governing federation from the “International Canoe Federation (ICF)” to the “International Canoe/Kayak Federation (ICKF)”.

  • Currently the ICF and the IOC call the sport “Canoeing” and everyone a “Canoeist”.
  • Within the two main disciplines – Sprint and Slalom, there are two styles of paddling:   kayak (where paddlers use a double blade paddle and paddle in a seated position) and canoe (where paddlers use a single blade paddle and paddle in a kneeling position). In sprint, kayaks have rudders for steering and canoes have no rudder.
  • By calling everyone a canoeist within the sport of canoeing, this hides the fact that there are still no  female canoeists (single-blade) since the sport’s Olympic debut in 1936.  And it hides the fact that there is a gross disparity in the number of kayak and canoe events in sprint (9 and 3, respectively, with no C4, 4 person canoe).  There also continues to be imbalances between men and women in general (i.e., women kayakers still have fewer events than the men) and men/women compete in different distances.