The first whitewater slalom race took place on the Aar River in Switzerland in 1933.[1] The early slalom courses were all set in natural rivers, but when whitewater slalom became an Olympic sport for the first time, at the 1972 Munich Games, the venue was the world's first concrete-channel artificial whitewater course, the Eiskanal in Augsburg. All Olympic whitewater slalom competitions have taken place in artificial courses, which now exist in 16 countries on five continents.
Streambed slalom courses still outnumber concrete channels, but most international competition takes place in the more controlled environment of an artificial course. The standard parameters for such a course, patterned on the Olympic model, are a length of about 300 metres (980ft), a slope of 2% (20m/km[110ft/mi]), and a flow rate of 17 cubic metres per second (600cuft/s). Within those parameters, designs vary. Water diversion features can be natural rocks, shaped concrete boulders and wing dams, plastic bollards, wooden dams, or truck tires. Channel walls can be straight or slanted, and smooth or cobbled. The floor of the channel may have raised turbulence generators to slow the water speed. The course may be a single straight channel, parallel channels, one or more loops, or a figure-8.
Water can be supplied by diversion from a nearby river, tidal current, electric pumps, or a combination. The expense of operation is largely dependent on the water source. A single channel on the Olympic model— a six-metre (20ft) drop at 17 m³/s— represents one megawatt of energy, either supplied by pumps or sacrificed in the case of diversion around a hydroelectric generator. Ironically, diversion is often more expensive than pumping if the diverted water would have made a bigger drop inside the hydroelectric facility. The extreme example of this is the Ocoee Whitewater Center where water must bypass a 96-metre (315ft) drop in a dam, tunnel, and penstock, in order to water the 9-meter drop of the whitewater course.
Most artificial whitewater courses cover their operating costs by charging passengers for guided raft rides. Canoe and kayak slalom training and competition do not generate enough revenue.
The four riverbed courses on this list are all extensively engineered and used for major competitions. Ocoee is no longer used for slalom, but it was the 1996 Olympic venue. The other courses on the list have concrete channels, often built in former industrial canals or mill races. Every city that hosts a summer Olympics is now expected to build a spectacular new whitewater stadium, usually powered by electric pumps. The Lee Valley White Water Centre, constructed for the London 2012 Summer Olympics, cost £31million.[2]
In the table below, the location of each facility for which there is no Wikipedia article is noted in the Comment column. If the facility is more than two years old, there is often a good satellite or aerial (bird's eye) picture available via the link.
Artificial Whitewater Canoe/Kayak Slalom Courses— Grouped by Country— Listed by Completion Date
The Toccoa River and Ocoee River are the names in use for a single 93-mile-long (150 km) river that flows northwestward through the southern Appalachian Mountains of the southeastern United States. It is a tributary of the Hiwassee River, which it joins in Polk County, Tennessee, near the town of Benton. Three power generating dams are operated along it.
Canoe slalom is a competitive sport with the aim to navigate a decked canoe or kayak through a course of hanging downstream or upstream gates on river rapids in the fastest time possible. It is one of the two kayak and canoeing disciplines at the Summer Olympics, and is referred to by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as Canoe/Kayak Slalom. The other Olympic canoeing discipline is canoe sprint. Wildwater canoeing is a non-Olympic paddlesport.
The Augsburg Eiskanal is an artificial whitewater river in Augsburg, Germany, constructed as the canoe slalom venue for the 1972 Summer Olympics in nearby Munich.
An artificial whitewater course (AWWC) is a site for whitewater canoeing, whitewater kayaking, whitewater racing, whitewater rafting, playboating and slalom canoeing with artificially generated rapids.
The Penrith Whitewater Stadium is located near Sydney, Australia. It is an artificial whitewater sporting facility which hosted the canoe/kayak slalom events at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The facility is part of the Penrith Lakes Scheme, which is converting open-pit sand and gravel mines into lakes for recreation. It is close to Cranebrook and is adjacent to the Sydney International Regatta Centre. These lakes are not filled via the Nepean River, but are filled via rain water and ground water. The operation of the facility aerates the water and improves water quality in the flat water rowing and canoeing course.
The U.S. National Whitewater Center (USNWC) is a not-for-profit outdoor recreation and athletic training facility for whitewater rafting, kayaking, canoeing, rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking and ice skating which opened to the public in 2006. The Center is located in Charlotte, North Carolina on approximately 1,300 acres (530 ha) of land adjacent to the Catawba River, with more than 50 miles (80 km) of developed trail.
Cardington Artificial Slalom Course (CASC) was the first artificial whitewater canoe slalom course in the UK when it was completed in July 1982, having been first discussed in 1972.
The Dickerson Whitewater Course, on the Potomac River near Dickerson, Maryland, was built for use by canoe and kayak paddlers training for the 1992 Olympic Games in Spain. It was the first pump-powered artificial whitewater course built in North America, and is still the only one anywhere with heated water. It remains an active training center for whitewater slalom racing, swiftwater rescue training, and other whitewater activities.
Parc Olímpic del Segre is a canoeing and kayaking facility in La Seu d'Urgell, Catalonia, Spain, built in 1990 for use during the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
The Ocoee Whitewater Center, near Ducktown, Tennessee, United States, was the canoe slalom venue for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, and is the only in-river course to be used for Olympic slalom competition. A 1,640 foot stretch of the Upper Ocoee River was narrowed by two-thirds to create the drops and eddies needed for a slalom course. Today, the course is watered only on summer weekends, 34 days a year, for use by guided rafts and private boaters. When the river has water, 24 commercial rafting companies take more than 750 raft passengers through the course each day.
The Čunovo Water Sports Centre is an artificial whitewater slalom course in Slovakia, on an island in the Danube river, 14 km southeast of Bratislava, near the village of Čunovo. It is powered by flow diversion from the Čunovo dam. Since 1997, it has hosted a full schedule of local, regional, and international competitions, including multiple World Cup races, 2 European Championships and the 2011 World Championships.
Kanupark Markkleeberg, built in 2006, is the second of two artificial whitewater canoe/kayak slalom courses in Germany, and the only one powered by pumps. The other German course is the Eiskanal in Augsburg, used in the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich. Kanupark Markkleeberg is located on the southeast shore of Markkleeberger See, a lake south of Markkleeberg, a suburb on the south side of Leipzig. A former open-pit coal mine, the lake was flooded in 1999 with groundwater and developed as a water recreation area. The lake is part of the Leipziger Neuseenland, the largest landscape construction project in Europe, which is reclaiming formerly barren industrial and mining sites for recreational use.
Adventure Sports Center International is an Olympic standard white water rafting and canoe/kayak slalom center located on the mountaintop above the Wisp Ski Resort at Deep Creek Lake, McHenry, Maryland, United States. In addition to serving as a venue for slalom races and training, the center offers a range of services to the general public including guided raft trips, inflatable kayak rentals, and riverboard rentals.
Stave Falls Dam is a dual-dam power complex on the Stave River in Stave Falls, British Columbia, Canada. The dam was completed in 1912 for the primary purpose of hydroelectric power production. To increase the capacity of Stave Lake, the dam was raised in 1925 and the Blind Slough Dam constructed in an adjacent watercourse 500 m (1,600 ft) to the north, which was the site of the eponymous Stave Falls. In 2000, the dam's powerhouse was replaced after a four-year upgrade. The original Stave Falls powerhouse was once British Columbia's largest hydroelectric power source, and is a National Historic Site of Canada.
The Miel I Dam, officially known as the Patángoras Dam, is a gravity dam on La Miel River just south of Norcasia in Caldas Department, Colombia. The dam was constructed between 1997 and 2002 for the primary purpose of hydroelectric power generation. At the time of its completion, the dam was the tallest roller-compacted concrete (RCC) dam in the world but was surpassed by the Longtan Dam in 2009.
The Yangyang Pumped Storage Power Station uses the water of the Namdae-Chun River to operate a 1,000-megawatt (1,300,000 hp) pumped storage hydroelectric power scheme, about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) west of Yangyang in Gangwon Province, South Korea. The lower reservoir is created by the Yangyang Dam on the Namdae and the upper reservoir by the Inje Dam is located 937 metres (3,074 ft) above the power plant. Construction on the power plant began in 1996 and it was completed and dedicated on September 13, 2006. It is operated by Korean Midland Power Co., a subsidiary of Korea Electric Power Company and was completed at a cost of ₩1.1 trillion won. The first generator was operational on February 23, 2006 and the last August 10, 2006.
The Kazunogawa Pumped Storage Power Station is a pumped-storage hydroelectric power station near Kōshū in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. The station is designed to have an installed capacity of 1,600 megawatts (2,100,000 hp) and three of the four 400 megawatts (540,000 hp) generators are currently operational, for a total operational capacity of 1200 MW. Construction on the power station began in 1993 and the first generator was commissioned on 3 December 1999. The second was commissioned on 8 June 2000. The third one became operational on 9 June 2014, six year early due to post-power demand from the Great East Japan earthquake. The fourth and final generator is slated to be commissioned by 2024. It is owned by TEPCO and was constructed at a cost of US$2.2 billion.
The Ondrej Cibak Whitewater Slalom Course, in Liptovský Mikuláš, Slovakia, is the world's second-oldest artificial whitewater venue for international canoe slalom competition, after the Augsburg Eiskanal. Built in 1978, it diverts water around a small dam on the Váh river. With recent upgrades, including a covered stadium for spectators, it remains a prime site for the sport.
The Kraków-Kolna Canoe Slalom Course is an artificial whitewater course in Poland, on the south bank of the Vistula River, in the suburb of Kolna, 10 kilometres (6 mi) west of Kraków. It is fed with river water diverted around a nearby dam. The top 120 metres (394 ft) of the course is a flatwater start pool that is covered in winter by a long white tent. Air inside the tent is heated, but the water is cold.
The Vienna Watersports Arena is an artificial whitewater venue for canoe and kayak slalom competition in Vienna, Austria, the only such facility in Austria. It also serves as a family water park, with guided raft trips and practice times for individual boaters. Located across the Danube from the city, on Danube Island, it pumps its water from the New Danube river channel. It opened in August 2013; the following June it hosted the 2014 European Canoe Slalom Championships.
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