How a Sport Saved Itself
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
The New York Times
September 18, 2000
PENRITH Australia, Sept. 18 -- It is a relatively long journey here from
downtown Sydney: about an hour in a car; about the same in a train and a big change
in mood and sophistication. But for the whitewater canoeists and kayakers who
competed for medals here today, any commute is better than what they were
facing two years ago: no Olympic journey at all.
They are here because they wanted to be, not because they were asked to be.
They are here because they lobbied hard and well, and because, in an
unprecedented move, their own sport's federation decided to help pay for the
construction of the Penrith Whitewater Stadium.
"It is a good comeback story," said French canoeist Franck
Addison, a gold medalist in 1996, as he stared down from a nearby ridge at the
Olympic course and the 11,000 fans who were cheering in the sun.
It is also a story that demonstrates the difficulty of cutting sports from
the Olympics and to what lengths athletes will go to keep their window of
opportunity open. Whitewater, in the minds of the organizers of the Sydney
Games, initially meant white elephant, and after crunching the numbers, the
Sydney Organizing Committee president, Michael Knight, and his advisors
announced in November 1996 that whitewater canoeing and kayaking was not in
their plans and not in these Games despite being part of the festivities in
1992 and 1996.
"I remember going to the closing ceremony in Atlanta, and we had
something on our hats that said, 'See you in Sydney,"' said American
canoeist David Hearn. "That was kind of when I decided right then that I
wanted to go to another Olympics, and then a few months later, we heard we'd
been cut out, and it was a big disappointment."
Whitewater had been cut before. It made its debut in 1972 at the Olympics in
Munich because the West Germans liked the sport and were good at it. They spent
several million dollars building an artificial river at Augsburg to host the competition,
but the East Germans managed to reconnoiter and copy the course at considerable
expense and ended up winning all four gold medals. The sport did not reappear
until 1992 in Barcelona, or more precisely in La Seu d'Urgell, which was closer
to Andorra than Barcelona. During the Atlanta Games, whitewater remained a
fringe sport in both senses of the term as the events were contested in a
different state: just across the border in Copperhill, Tenn.
"It's never a sure thing," three-time-Olympian Hearn conceded.
Building a whitewater venue for the Summer Olympics is like building a
bobsled run for the Winter Olympics: it is not done easily and usually not done
cheaply. Knight reasoned that it was not worth the investment in a region with
no tradition in this obscure sport and which had little reason to support such
a venue after the Olympics rolled on toward Athens.
Not surprisingly, the athletes had a different agenda. "For a sport
like ours to not be in the Olympics is condemning it to a slow death,"
said Addison, who won a bronze medal in 1992 and the gold in 1996 in canoe
slalom pairs with partner Wilfrid Forgues.
While the International Canoe Federation, more concerned with
"flatwater" canoeing and kayaking, accepted the decision with
relative equanimity, Forgues and Addison were not prepared to let the sport
slip back underwater. Instead they and other competitors shifted some of their
attention from the rapids, boulders and narrow dangling gates which make their
sport such an exacting test. Instead of pulling on their paddles, they pulled
strings.
Jacques Chirac, the president of France, made pleas to Olympic officials on
their sport's behalf. Former German prime minister Helmut Kohl intervened, as
well. Petitions were circulated (Hearn's wife, Jennifer, got Billie Jean King
and Olympic swimming star Janet Evans to sign) and alternative construction
plans proposed after the city of Penrith -- already the host to the rowing --
agreed to host the whitewater, as well, if Sydney organizers would agree.
The result is what was on view today on a formerly bone-dry patch of land: a
thoroughly artificial U-shaped, 320-meter course complete with six submersible
water pumps and a conveyor belt to carry competitors from the finish to the
start without them having to bother leaving their vessels. When not hosting
Olympians, the new course hosts suburban whitewater rafters, who pay for the
thrill. Total price tag for one of the best and most unusually placed courses
in the world: 6.5 million Australian dollars, or about half of what SOCOG
officials had originally projected when they decided to eliminate the sport.
Three and half million came from the New South Wales state government; 1.5
million from the Penrith City Council and the remaining 1.5 million from the
International Canoe Federation and its national members. For the first time, a
sport has helped pay its own way into the Games and not without a certain cost
on the athletes.
"We didn't pay it out of our own pockets, but indirectly we did,"
said Hearn, a 41-year-old from Bethesda, Md., who finished last among the 12
finalists in today's canoe singles event, which was won by Tony Estanguet of
France.
"USA Canoeing and Kayaking gave $100,000. That's a lot of money for
them, and it cuts into what they can do to help us."
The alternative is perhaps more costly: Addison and Forgues lost all of
their sponsorship deals after the sport was dropped from the Olympics. But
conditions have improved since for the French team. They brought seven coaches
with them to Penrith (the Americans brought one full-time coach) and today, the
French won three of the six whitewater medals available. Estanguet won the
men's event by taking advantage of a poor first run by the reigning Olympic
champion, Michal Martikan of Slovakia, who had to settle for silver. In the
women's kayak singles, Stepanka Hilgertova of the Czech Republic defended her
Olympic title, finishing well ahead of Brigitte Guibal and Anne-Lise Bardet of
France.
"All I know is that if President Chirac calls and congratulates us, no
one can accuse him of hopping on the bandwagon," said the French team
leader Antoine Goetschy.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
