Time for a radical rethink?

General slalom chatter...rant about the bad, rave about the good
Steve Agar
Posts: 56
Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2015 9:30 am

Time for a radical rethink?

Post by Steve Agar » Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:49 pm

We are constantly trying to attract and retain new paddlers into our sport, as well as make it an entertaining and satisfying for all who compete, whether at elite, intermediate or novice level. I hope that most of us think that "having fun" is also a fundamental part of what we do. In an attempt to sustain this, we alter and adjust the format of the sport and its events and change the rules because without change we can't hope to keep in touch with the world around us and what people think and do, whether its within our control or not. Enough of the philosophical stuff. We struggle to run enough events on the right water in the right place to keep everyone happy. We have too many paddlers sometimes, too few at others. And we always come back to how much it all costs. Are we right, therefore, to allow our sport's development to be dictated by the all-pervading and all-powerful clamour for Olympic medals? Yes, the publicity helps: yes, we want to be taken "seriously" but can anyone really explain what benefit the vast majority of us see by Sport UK putting £20 million pounds over 4 years into the elite end of canoe sport, and doubtless British Canoeing also stumping up our cash to support this. (I do not, at this time, know what proportion of the money goes to slalom, but hefty chunk, I imagine - I will endeavour to find out.) The Slalom Committee's income is something like £40,000 per year to keep the rest of the sport going. So we structure our sport around the stated desire to win Olympic medals, and a very few professional paddlers (no slight intended, it's just a fact), with a well-supported structure build around them. Isn't it about time that the hundreds of other paddlers for whom the sport matters were given the chance to consider whether or not things could be done differently for a wider benefit, and greater enjoyment for all? Discuss!

Steve Agar
Posts: 56
Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2015 9:30 am

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by Steve Agar » Fri Dec 16, 2016 3:47 pm

...and the extra £3m from Sport England to British Canoeing announced today "will be ring fenced for the talented athlete programme".

JimW
Posts: 570
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:17 pm
Location: Pinkston

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by JimW » Fri Dec 16, 2016 4:21 pm

I agree, but who do we need to tell?

I have this dreadful feeling it is outwith BC's control and we need to convince Westminster that the investment is, well perhaps not all wrong, but certainly missing a critical part of the discipline....?

Steve Agar
Posts: 56
Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2015 9:30 am

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by Steve Agar » Fri Dec 16, 2016 4:51 pm

Given that most of Sport England's £88m grants announced today are for "grassroots" sport, I'd love to know whether the decision to provide money for the Talent programme lies with Sport England or British Canoeing. I suspect finding out might take some time.

JimW
Posts: 570
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:17 pm
Location: Pinkston

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by JimW » Sun Dec 18, 2016 8:47 pm

To be honest I can't work out which bodies provide what kind of funding.

As far as I can tell Sport England manages lottery funding and any club can apply to them directly without needing to involve BC at all?

John A
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jul 15, 2017 2:23 pm

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by John A » Sat Jul 15, 2017 8:28 pm

Not sure if this really is relevant, but if I memory has not been distorted by time, in the 1970's I can recall attending numerous lower division events in which there were entries of 200+. At this time our international standing in terms of success was not particular high. Could a contributory factor of the popularity of Slalom at this time be that the limited financial resources available at that time were not being focused on the elite?
I must stress that I have no evidence to back up the above assumptions as I have not been involved in competitive canoeing for some 40 years.

JoS
Posts: 66
Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:30 pm

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by JoS » Sun Jul 16, 2017 10:56 pm

How did they run events with more than 200 lower division paddlers? What time did they start and finish? When did everybody in control manage to eat and wee? Did the timing never fail? It seems huge compared to 3/4s now, we cram as many as possible in the Prems and 1s because they go faster but the judges still get tangled up and stuff goes wrong sometimes.

JimW
Posts: 570
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:17 pm
Location: Pinkston

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by JimW » Mon Jul 17, 2017 12:26 pm

JoS wrote:How did they run events with more than 200 lower division paddlers? What time did they start and finish? When did everybody in control manage to eat and wee? Did the timing never fail? It seems huge compared to 3/4s now, we cram as many as possible in the Prems and 1s because they go faster but the judges still get tangled up and stuff goes wrong sometimes.
I'm guessing the same way most sports start out, all the competitors took it in turns to judge and time each other.....

User avatar
davebrads
Posts: 508
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 7:43 am
Location: Tamworth
Contact:

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by davebrads » Mon Jul 17, 2017 3:43 pm

No, the judges were generally paddlers from other divisions or parents just as it is now. It was hectic though, much longer days as we had to get over 200 competitors (including the judges) down a course at 1 minute intervals. We did have a little more time though, practice runs and team runs were on Saturday, so there was no practice on Sunday which gives you another couple of hours. Another issue we don't face now is that runs were often over 200 seconds long even for the fastest paddlers so you could have 4 paddlers on the course at once! Of course the timing did fail and we lost communication just as we do now. One advance that has made it harder for the organiser is the computer. An organiser is expected to have a print out of results by the end of the event, while all we had to do is put the cards out on display, better run events had someone to put them into result order but that was all that was needed. Some of the bigger higher division events were sometimes run at 45 second intervals in order to get everyone down in the available daylight, especially at the start and end of the season.

I believe that the greatest contributory factor to the reduction in entries is the advent of the plastic whitewater boat. Before that, if you wanted to paddle whitewater, you bought a slalom boat as that was all that was available. You joined a club, and since you had a slalom boat you occasionally raced at a slalom, after all most of the rivers you could paddle were fairly tame, most people didn't want to risk breaking their boats too often! A lot of clubs didn't have any training facilities, but people still raced. A consequence of this was that there were a lot of paddlers racing in the lower divisions who didn't progress particularly quickly and so were quite happy racing on easier water.

Nowadays most people that take up slalom do train and consequently most progress relatively quickly. We don't have the numbers competing that we used to because your average club paddler is quite happy running rivers in their creek boats, since that is what they came into the sport to do. If we want to increase participation we need to actively recruit slalom paddlers and provide training facilities. On the whole it is easier to recruit juniors, but mostly you will then find that you gain a few parents who also want to join in while running their children around the country, so a good club should also find some room for these people too, especially when they will likely be the ones who will be running the club and organising training and races in the future. The sport has singularly failed to address this, it has been left to enthusiastic individuals to do it on their own initiative, the problem being that if that person leaves the club then the facilities may fall into disuse and can sometimes be lost forever. We need a national initiative to create new training sites, and identify and support volunteers to run training sessions on these sites. Imagine what how big the sport would be if we had 40 Stafford & Stones around the country, I am sure that this could be achieved at a similar cost to having two TID centres, with a proportionate increase in international success and long-term benefit to the sport.

Steve Agar
Posts: 56
Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2015 9:30 am

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by Steve Agar » Mon Jul 17, 2017 8:33 pm

Well said, Dave. Time for a few of those who really benefit from the system to put a bit more back in, perhaps?

JBS
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2016 12:01 pm

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by JBS » Wed Jul 19, 2017 4:49 pm

I tend to keep out of these things but a lot of what Dave says makes sense to me......
Personally I don't think there is a lot of long term thinking going on here about the effect of the TID programmes on the non TID kids in the sport.
Would it not be better to look thoroughly at the options such as, but not exclusively:
Ensuring there is a fleet of good qaulity boats available with a coach at club nights for different clubs? Coach A will visit club 1 on the first Tuesday of the month, club 2 on the first Wednesday etc etc. Then the appointed coach could also encourage club coaches to shadow them and learn what would be the "national" coaching methods to use on sessions inbetween. The regional coach and trailer of boats would then also support local slaloms.....supplying boats and coaching? Much like theTID programme but more widely available.
As I said just one quick idea. There are perhaps, many well explored reasons why this is a poor idea.

Niciss
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Jul 21, 2013 7:14 am

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by Niciss » Wed Jul 19, 2017 8:24 pm

There just seems to be a whole lot of serious competition with a drive to the top, and not a lot of competing for fun. Ever driven past the regatta lake at HPP when there is a seniors / veterans race ? The rowers get more 50 + age group in a day than we get in a season. People competing in a sport they love to be the best they can, without a gang of hysterical kids crowding round the results screen or worse hysterical parents complaining, protesting and claiming its not fair. British Canoeing are not being honest with parents and kids. There is one boat slot at the olympics, paddling is not a short lived sport, with professional athletes well into their 30s. Lets get real, its a hobby not a career choice, don't be forced into c1 and k1 if you don't want it, do c2, enjoy. Some of the tales I hear from the European races suggest we take ourselves just a bit too seriously.

Reformed Boy
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:36 pm

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by Reformed Boy » Thu Jul 20, 2017 5:12 pm

Well Done Steve for opening this one up and for the comments from Brads, Niciss et al.

I too come from the dark ages when slalom was in B&W and we had an annual fair at Crystal Palace to kick the year off etc.
They were, without doubt, the best days of my life; we have lost a lot and that's not just sentimental nostalgia.

There was nothing sentimental about wearing your old footie socks, pimsols, nylon deck, T-shirt (sweater in winter if it got to below -5C) and boats that weighed a ton and leaked like a seive.
There was also nothing like having to sleep on top of your dry cloths in a drafty tent 'cos you forgot your sleeping bag or gasping in the morning 'cos it was your turn to bring the milk adn you forgot that too; mistakes that you only made once because you had no one to do the thinking for you.

Dave, the format you described was spot on, Everything other than individual racing was on Saturday and just the runs on Sunday. 30 gates (the same old TUTTI equipment), proper organised Team events and loads of good practice time.

It is churlish of me to bemoan the emphasis on TIDS and all the other good stuff that goes on but...

Slalom is a one-boat-slot sport as far as the Olympics is concerned and of course we've really excelled recently across the classes (which is great) but at what expense??
I'm not talking money per se but it seems like every kids is being lead down a path where they're receiving great training and coaching in everything except dealing with 'not making it' or 'failing to win'. Once that realisation happens we risk losing that canoeist from the sport (and their future kids etc) forever.

Equipment is far better now, communications and info is much better now, sports awareness and physical fitness seems a lot better now, international success is better than ever; so why do the signs look worrying? I think it's because we've lost some of the traditional spirit and awe of our unique sport and it's been replaced by 'everything other than winning is losing' -that's a shame and not the sport that has sustained my passion (even in my dry years) since 1972.

Reformed Boy
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed May 18, 2016 4:36 pm

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by Reformed Boy » Thu Jul 20, 2017 5:13 pm

Alternatively, I'm just a sad old gi....

PeterC
Posts: 236
Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 12:14 am
Location: Fife Scotland

Re: Time for a radical rethink?

Post by PeterC » Wed Jul 26, 2017 11:18 am

Taking the focus of funding of elitism to the nth degree in respect of Olympic medals you would want to identify the paddlers that were going to medal at the Olympics and invest everything in them that you needed to get them there. A sport is however not a sport without wider participation and it needs to be cherished and supported. The sport is essentially self funded i.e. the entry fees cover the costs of the clubs running the races and the levies cover the central costs of supporting the sport with judging and timing at the higher level.

We have a perennial problem with attracting and retaining volunteers particularly those who will commit an entire weekend to supporting a race even when they have no other reason to be there. Solutions gratefully received...

We are perhaps getting more successful and widening the top of the pyramid with races at Div 1 and Prem particularly fully subscribed. There has to be a limit to numbers in a race which may be dictated by the amount of water time available or even just ensuring that the race could be accomplished between dawn and dusk. Organisers who try to get too many paddlers down the course are very unpopular with volunteers. Paddlers are actually though I think (John S will say if I am wrong) particularly at Div 1 entering more races in a season than they used to do i.e. trying to utilise every opportunity to gain points and promotion.

Blocking racing at full events for the additional ones that would want to race is not rewarding or desirable but is something we have to currently live with. The alternative of having more than one Div 1 in any one weekend while it might create more spaces for those wishing to race would not be easily supported in terms of volunteer judges and those timing.

Post Reply