Manu Ochoa decided to take up canoeing when he was six years old, but his older brother was not at the level to teach him and his father even less so. However, the man invented a somewhat rudimentary method to please his son. “He took a canoe from the club, put a rope on it, tied it to a post that fishermen used to tie up their boats, and gave me 30 metres to row,” says this 26-year-old kayaker, now an Olympian in Paris. A week ago, when this Galician from Tomiño (Pontevedra) recalled the anecdote, Maialen Chourraut, at his side, could not help laughing and being surprised by such primitive beginnings.
Two decades later, Manu Ochoa is the most specialised member of the Spanish team in the new Olympic event, kayak cross, which ends this Monday with the medal ceremony. A discipline that breaks the rules of the classic slalom runs in white water, which have always been seen by the average public, and which is part of the general trend to try to attract a younger fan base with more spectacular events. The Galician and Chourraut are the two Spaniards who have qualified for the final rounds (from 15.30 for the women’s quarterfinals and at 15.52 for the men’s). Miquel Travé and Miren Lazkano did not make it through the series and were eliminated.
Except for the individual timed start, the kayakers do not cross the canal one by one, avoiding gates that they cannot touch, but rather they do so in groups of three or four, making contact with obstacles and colliding with each other’s boats. Participants can even get hit by canoes. All this ostentation makes it one of the most attractive elements for attracting new clients.
“Contacts on the bodies of the participants exist, although they do not occur so frequently,” Ochoa clarifies. And referees make sure that no one crosses the line (according to their interpretation). “There is a type of red card for conduct that may pose a danger: point contact [de la embarcación]-head, tip-body with a lot of aggression, moving a door away from a rival so that he can jump over it… You can get hit by a kayak if it is not very aggressive and it is obvious that it is not intentional,” explains the Galician, who says that, in any case, “the blows”, when they occur, are taken by those on the inside. To alleviate possible damage, the edges of the paddles must have a minimum thickness of five millimetres to avoid cuts if they hit the rivals.
Maialen Chourraut, who remained active after Tokyo 2020 because of the personal challenge that the event represented for her, said that before the Japanese event she had avoided it because of the possible risk of injury. These days, on the Vaires-sur-Marne canal, east of Paris, a blow to her neck was still being reported.
The nature of the discipline also changes the way of approaching a descent. “Unlike traditional slalom,” explains Ochoa, “where physical and technical components prevail, here tactics come into play. You depend on how the rest act, what decisions you make, whether you defend, attack, escape… There are many variants,” explains the Galician, who has been practicing kayak cross since he entered the international program in 2018, and who has spent the last six months investing most of his time in it with a view to the Games.
“Here you can knock on doors [en slalom reciben una penalización de dos segundos]but if you skip them, it’s a fault [en slalom son 50 segundos y la derrota efectiva]. And the sooner you do it, the worse. There is also an inflatable bar that crosses the channel and at some point when passing through that churro your canoe must be completely overturned,” he says about another of the scenes that add more colour to the test. These are boats that weigh twice as much as the slalom ones (18 kilos), measure 2.6 metres compared to the 3.5 of the others, and are made of plastic, not carbon.
Heavier and shorter boats
The competition started with individual descents that serve to choose the starting ramp. “There is usually a street that is slightly faster and gives you a bit of an advantage. Here it seems to be the one on the right,” says Ochoa. And from the second day of competition onwards the group descents began. “Four of us go out and the first two, if they have no faults, go on to the next round,” explains the Galician, who lives next to the La Seu d’Urgell (Lleida) bullfighting channel.
Once the slalom runs are over, a solo exercise in strength and skill in which the paddlers dance on currents, curls and whirlpools to avoid the gates, it is time for the barbaric group kayak races.
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