Sprint kayaking is an Olympic sport held on flat water over either 500 or 1000 metres. At World Championship level there is also a 200m event.
 
Competitors race in a single, double or four man kayak over the distance from a stationary start.
 
Competitions are held on a course with 9 lanes, heats, semi-finals and finals. First across the finish line wins.
 
Top specification race boats are high tech made from carbon fibre and built for straight line speed. They have a small rudder at the rear to aid turning when necessary and for helping to keep the kayak in a straight line when racing.
 
Kayaking is a relatively cheap and easy sport to get into with many different disciplines to choose from.
 
To find your nearest canoe and kayak club visit the British Canoe Union website club locator here or the start paddlesport site here.
 
To find out more about the national sprint canoe and kayak team see the Great Britain canoeing site here.
 
news
World Champs 2010 - I'm back!

23rd August 2010

Just returned home with a silver medal from the World Championships in Poznan, Poland! I've raced here many times and there is always a good atmosphere and a big crowd. Apart from some very windy and bumpy conditions on the first day of racing, the other three days provided perfect and fair racing conditions. 
I felt great racing after having a slightly disappointing Europeans in my first season back in the sport since Beijing.  I comfortably made the A finals in the 500m and 1000m events. The 1000m final went very well for me and I felt comfortable racing from the front. Congratulations to Max Hoff who retains his World Champion title by getting past me in the last 50m. In the 500m I caught some weed on my rudder after about 200m and from then struggled to get back into the race, finishing 4th. Anders Gustafsson from Sweden took a really well deserved victory to win his first World Championship Gold medal.
I am really happy to be finishing the sprint season with a World Championship medal and feel like I am now back exactly where I want to be in my preparations for London 2012. Thank you very much to all my sponsors, suppliers and supporters who have helped get me back to this level. A special thanks to my coach Eric Farrell who continues to work hard with the same amount of passion and effort as he has done over the last 16 years of coaching me. 
I can now relax for a couple of weeks before getting back into the hard winter block of training.  First though I am competing in the Nelo Summer Challenge next weekend in Portugal. It will be a lot of fun racing on the sea again and Nelo always know how to hold an entertaining competition!

 
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