Competitive Paddlesport
Canoe Slalom
Canoe slalom is an exciting and fun paddlesport demanding skill, boat control and speed. The aim of the sport is to navigate through a series of gates in as short a time as possible and with as few penalties as possible - touch a gate pole will earn you a 2 second penalty, missing a gate will cost you 50 seconds! It is a great way to develop paddling skills that you can transfer to other paddling activities like river running, touring, play-boating, polo or just messing around on the lake. Slalom events are friendly, social occasions and great fun. The club has a slalom training course in the pond next to the boathouse and has several slalom boats for members wanting to have a go at the sport. We run slalom training sessions at the lake and in other locations all year round, and enter slalom competitions during the slalom season (March to October).
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Canoe Polo
Canoe Polo is a fast and exciting sport combining paddling and ball handling skills with an exciting contact team game. We currently have two teams playing in the National and Yorkshire leagues. We have our own Canoe Polo pitch on the lake and a full set of polo equipment including kayaks, paddles, helmets and buoyancy aids.
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Sprint/Marathon
Sprint and Marathon are both forms of flat-water canoe racing. One thing both sports have in common is that the boats are long, narrow and fast!
Sprint racing is an Olympic sport over distances of 200 m, 500 m and 1000 m where paddlers race in lanes. Marathon racing takes place over longer distances - typically 6 km or more and often have portage sections where you have to get out of your boat and run with it! There is also an special class for Under 12's paddling plastic "Lightning" racing kayaks over distances of around 2 km. |
Wildwater Racing
Wildwater Racing - also known as river racing (and sometimes wacky racing - when you see the boats you will understand why!), involves going down a white water river on timed runs in as fast a possible time as you can, without stopping. A Sprint race has two short runs where the best time counts. The Classic race is a single run, of a longer distance – usually 10-15 minutes in length.
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Other Competitive Paddlesports
There are many other forms of paddlesport competition - Freestyle, Extreme Racing and Surfing to name a just a few.