Splash, bang, wallop! The bangs and wallops are as inevitable as all the splashing in an event where chaos reigns and kayakers are prone to lose a tooth or two. When the IOC added kayak cross – formerly known as extreme kayaking – to the schedule for its Olympic Games debut it knew it was on to a winner. They race down the course together and battle not against the stopwatch, as in the traditional form of the slalom sport, but against each other.
For once the clock is more forgiving. Four boats go at it each time and there is nothing resembling a lane, just a collection of downstream and upstream gates at which they paddle and scrummage for dominance. From the moment the competitors are launching from a ramp, more than five metres above the water, they are bumping in the style of aqua dodgems.
It does not end. From being asked to be Tarzan, plunging nose first into the rapids – “from which,” as Edgar Burroughs’ book says, “no man has ever returned” – they soon have to turn into the bravest Inuit as they must go completely underwater and execute a 360-degree Eskimo Roll under a “limbo” rod. Once the right way up, they continue their H20 helter-skelter, hurtling for the first finishing line.
Jeopardy is everywhere. Although the organisers do not go full Gladiators and fire balls from cannons at the protagonists, it very much has that feel. The fans, who packed out the horseshoe grandstands on the first two days of heats, and will again for Monday’s final.