About Canoeing

A Scotsman called John MacGregor founded the first kayak club, “Canoe Club” in the world on 25th July 1866 in London. MacGregor was also the organiser of the first regatta in 1869 on 16th May.
The first World Championships took place in 1930 and Canoeing became an Olympic sport at the 1936 Games in Berlin. In 1946 women were allowed to compete! Canoeing is now the 6th largest sport at the Olympic Games.

The Olympic programme consists of 12 flat-water events, 9 for men and 3 for women. Men compete over 1000m and 500m; women only compete over 500m (at the Olympic Games). There are 3 different categories, singles – K1, doubles – K2 and fours – K4. From the standard canoe-kayak world championship programme there are no events over 200m.

At the Sprint Racing World Championships 2003, 78 countries participated with 1250 athletes and officials from around the world attending. This was the largest world championships ever, in terms of number of participating nations.

Canoe Marathon racing has been a world championship event since 1988. Today Canoe Marathon is being practised around the world on all continents and in more than 50 countries.