A
fter the Oregon Cup, I drove across the border to Skookumchuck with
Eleanor Perry, an avid creeker from Colorado, where we met up with Amy Jimmerson. Jimmerson threw the biggest aerial backstab of the week, male or female. A similar move on the Slave River won her $1,000 at the IR Big Gun Show this summer in Salt Lake City. Other Big Gun Show entries also displayed female ability to throw big tricks, such as a helix that Perry threw on the Slave. Brenna Kelleher, from Montana, can aerial blunt at least two feet off the wave. Yes, women are definitely capable of going huge. But you’d never know it by watching rodeo. This brings to mind a major problem with professional freestyle kayaking today. Not only is rodeo boring to watch, it makes women appear to suck. Rodeo discourages women from innovating and going as big as possible. In fact, it encourages the opposite. Rodeo’s traditional format rewards moves we have seen for almost a decade—cartwheels, blunts and (gasp!) even spins. If a woman wants to win, spin- ning six times is a safer strategy than throwing her biggest aerial blunt. That’s because rodeo judges award “technical” points each time the boat rotates 180 degrees. The number of points depends on the verticality of the move—one point if the boat rotates flat (i.e., spins); two points if the bow or stern is elevated, but less than 45 degrees; and four points for vertical rotation, as in a cartwheel. The technical score is then multiplied by a “variety” score—points accumulated by performing different tricks, with varying scores depending on their difficulty. The result? Most women play it safe. They do a few different but conservative moves for some variety points, then simply spin to rack up the technical multiplier. Spinning is an easy route to the podium.
odeos were only cool in the days when ends were so long they would whip four feet out of the water on each rotation. Boat designs have left rodeo behind. Today’s tiny spuds allow innova- tions like Rush Sturge’s pistol flip, Marlow Long’s reverse helixes, James Mole’s new
R
What women want
move, the underdog, and the aerial per- formances we saw from women at the Big Gun Show. It’s time for competition format to catch up.
The Fédération Québécoise de Canoë- Kayak d'Eau Vive has recognized the prob- lem and stepped up the competition on the Quebec Circuit by completely removing the technical scoring. To win, paddlers throw as many big tricks as possible within a 45- second ride, including the high-scoring big stuff—air screws, helixes and "trophy moves" (something impressive that's never been seen before). With no technical scor- ing it is useless to repeat tricks, and thus the need for repetitive moves like spins or cartwheels is destroyed. Within the old rodeo format, women
aren't fast enough, coordinated enough or
strong enough to throw the men's 300- point rides that include both technical and variety. A man can throw fifteen left cart- wheels, a left–right split to fifteen right cartwheels, a right–left split, front and back loops and a backstab within a single competition ride. A woman at the same level of competition might throw six left cartwheels, a clean cartwheel and a loop to finish. The gender differences are obvi- ous, but will improve when women are forced to learn new and exciting tricks within formats such as that found in the Quebec Circuit.
F
ortunately, a new-school future of freestyle is emerging similar to the
Quebec Circuit: Big trick contests that allow both women and men to show off
2004 Spring 31
photo by Rob Faubert/
holeriders.com
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