FIRST IN BOATING: Clyde Jones, 23, on his way to winning
the second annual FIBArk downriver race in 1950. PHOTO COURTESY FIBARK BOAT RACES INC / THE MOUNTAIN MAIL
the continent converged at FIBArk and went home amazed, armed with new techniques, boat design ideas and courage to push the boundaries. Even today, in the weeks leading up to the June festival, normally eddy-hopping Colorado playboaters can be seen blasting downstream on training runs. Whitewater racing’s first appearance at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games fur-
ther rallied North American paddling around racing, but the Europeans proved far braver and more skilled on the manmade host course in Augsberg. North American paddlers returned home humbled yet determined to catch up. It is at this point that racing became Kevlar, gates and Lycra tights. Down-
river, or wildwater, racing became a sub discipline of slalom, even though it was the creator of it. Recreational boaters, uninterested in the precision required of slalom, went looking instead for un-run rivers and surf waves. Playboating was born. Where the Olympics were anticipated to be a boon to the sport, they more likely ostracised racing from the mainstream.
Paddlers are revisiting classic runs to beat unofficial fastest times
Racing as river running is back. With freestyle going the way of slalom as a specialty event, traditional river festivals looking for something new and more paddlers crossing back and forth between mountain biking, triathlons and other fitness sports, the timing is right. River running boats are back in style. Paddlers are revisiting classic runs to beat unofficial fastest times. The Green River Narrows Race in North Carolina attracts 800 participants
and spectators every November. This spring’s Hell or High Water race on the Petawawa River saw 106 racers, a 300 per cent increase in participants over last year. Events like this prove you can have the laidback, social atmosphere of paddling even with a stopwatch at the bottom. It becomes a great reason to get together. That is, after all, where whitewater paddling started.
JEFF JACKSON is a professor of Outdoor Adventure at Algonquin College in Pembroke, ON.
www.rapidmag.com
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