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OutdoorPlay Freestyle Championship Series Announced

posted February 28, 2000
by Jayne Abbot

American Whitewater, the non-profit river conservation organization, and Outdoorplay.com, the paddlesports community, have teamed up to present a new Champion Series with the largest purse for rodeo paddlers in history! The OutdoorPlay.com series is offering a $5,000 purse in Men's K-1, Women's K-1, C-1 and OC-1 Pro divisions at three events throughout the season. Champions of each division will split an overall purse of $7,500.

The series schedule is as follows:

Ocoee Whitewater Rodeo, Ocoee River, Ducktown, TN, May 19-21

****also site of the 2000 US Freestyle Team Trials****

South Bend Freestyle Championship, East Race Waterway, South Bend, IN August 18-21

Wausau Freestyle Championship, Wausau Whitewater Course, Wausau, WI August 25-27

If you are not familiar with the growing world of kayaking competition, you're probably wondering what is a whitewater rodeo? At first glance, you may ponder what bovines, cowboys and horses are doing in whitewater? Well, actually it has nothing to do with the landlubber variety of rodeo - could you image a cowboy trying to ride a horse in whitewater? A Whitewater Rodeo event features a series of competitions, much like a cowboy rodeo features bull riding, calf roping, etc. A whitewater rodeo typically feature freestyle (hole riding), free riding, downriver races and more.

It all began innocently enough. Kayakers would find themselves stuck in "holes," a frothy spot on the river formed by water being forced back on itself, and would struggle to exit the hole. The more experienced "hole-riders" began to develop moves to assist in freeing their kayak. Soon, paddlers discovered that there was a lot of fun to be had in these maneuvers and names began to be placed on the tricks - pirouette, cartwheel, blunt, wave wheel, shuvit, loop, to name a few. Named in part for the bucking-bronco look of the sport, "rodeo" kayaking was born. Now the object of hole-riding is not to exit the hole but rather to stay in it while performing a wide variety of choreographed tricks.

Be sure to visit an event near you this summer. Check out www.nowr.org for more information.