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< January February 2006
	All in the Family
The Future is in the Cup North American Cup previews possible Olympic freestyle paddling

Ruth Gordon and Andrew Holcombe claimed the inaugural North American Cup titles this summer, but the real winner is freestyle kayaking, a sport slowly working its way into the mainstream. With a World Cup circuit on tap next year and talk of Olympic inclusion as a demonstration sport in 2012, the two-stop North American Cup was a preview of next season’s three-event series modeled after skiing’s high-profile circuit.

“It was sort of a test run,” Holcombe says of the two-part competition on the Black River in New York and the Ottawa in Canada. “Multi-event formats are great because they give paddlers a chance to recover from a bad day, and they’re something this sport hasn’t been able to organize well in the past.”

The newfound organization comes courtesy of the International Freestyle Committee, which this year became a division of the International Canoe Federation (ICF)—the same group that administers Olympic slalom and sprint racing. Freestyle World Championships will still be contested every other year, while the off-years will feature a World Cup series rather than the current Pre-World Championship. The cup will alternate between North America and Europe, with the 2006 circuit stopping at the Black, the Ottawa and Rock Island on the Caney Fork in Tennessee. The 2006 and 2008 World Cups will be open to all paddlers, even if they aren’t members of a national team.

The new format heralds serious changes. Some European paddlers could soon dip into public sports coffers that provide funding for sports sanctioned by international bodies like the ICF. And with talk of freestyle moving into the Olympics, countries may begin testing for banned substances. “It’s totally up to the host country,” says Kristine Jackson, the North American Freestyle Kayaking representative to the ICF. That means anything from Ritalin to marijuana is a no-no. “We’ve been warned by Canada that they’re prepared to test during the World Cup. It doesn’t matter how hard we try to spread the word, someone is going to get busted.”

Though competitive freestyle kayaking is changing rapidly, Jackson cautiously admits things are going well. “We want organization,” she says. “We just don’t want to lose control.” —jc