Whitewater Canoeing and Rafting

Abstract

The development of white-water canoeing both as a sport and recreation began with the navigation of upland European rivers in a variety of craft, including canoes, kayaks, and rafts, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first documented white-water competition was a downriver (wildwater) race in foldboats held on the river Isar in Germany on July 16–17, 1921. The first white-water canoe slalom took place on the river Aar in Switzerland in 1933, rapidly leading to international competition and the first World Championships in Geneva in 1949. Canoe slalom was first incorporated into the Olympic Games in 1972, but not regularly featured until 1992. After more than a century of river exploration, the majority of the white-water rivers in the developed world have been paddled extensively, although river exploration of more remote, less developed regions is continuing. An International Scale of River Difficulty is used to classify rivers and individual rapids, from grade I to VI (Table 6.1).