Best of the Web

Catching Up With Oscar Chalupsky

I have always loved catching waves in my surfski. I spoke with Garrett Macnamarra and Grant Twiggy Baker about how to go about it. I have most everything sorted for next time. The break is very huge and it is a bit scary. It looks so small from the cliffs, but when you're out there it is huge.

Read more

Angola: Kayaking with crocodiles

Rumours of unexploded landmines, war-ravaged communities, violent crime, poverty and chaos were all common themes as American paddler Aaron Mann and I prepared for an historic kayaking expedition to Angola.

Read more

Moving Rowing Forward: Here’s How FISA Should Change The Olympic Rowing Regatta for 2020

As if the Rio Olympics, now less than six months away, didn’t present enough challenges for FISA, it has become increasingly clear that much will change in international rowing after the last medals are awarded at Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas.

FISA has two key mandates from the International Olympic Committee to take on as they look to shape the next quadrennial: A requirement for gender equality, and a limitation on the number of athletes allowed in the Olympic contingent.

Read more

$45 Million Oklahoma Whitewater Center to Open May 7

Riversport Rapids, Oklahoma City’s new $45.2 million whitewater rafting and kayaking center, is holding its grand opening celebration May 7-8 after nearly 10 years of planning and building. Included in the amenities: the world’s highest-volume, fully adjustable pumped freestyle feature, at 1,200 to 1,400 cfs.

Read more

Taps turned on at Auckland whitewater park

The park's general manager, Kiwi Olympic kayaking legend Ian Ferguson was joined by Vector chief executive Simon Mackenzie and Second Nature Charitable Trust chief executive Richard Jeffery to turn the wheel releasing 20 million litres of water into the park.

Read more

Middle-age fitness boosts mind, body

Canada's most successful slalom canoeist is about to turn 49, but he's still actively competing at an international level. The 1999 slalom world champion and five-time Olympian has paddled for our country for a mind-blowing 32 years.

Read more

Tate Smith: Up the creek with no paddle

TATE Smith should get goose bumps watching replays of Australia’s famous kayak gold medal win at the London Olympics. But he can’t watch. Not any more. The pleasure only ignites the pain so there is no point looking back.

Read more

Sprint kayaking – the Nova Scotia advantage

Nova Scotia is rarely a dominant sporting force on the national scene, but in one sport, the province is leading the way. Of the 36 athletes currently named in the national squads for sprint kayak, 13 live and train in Nova Scotia.

Read more

Rio faces crisis as female spectators and athletes are warned not to go

Rio's Olympics are on the verge of disaster as fear grows over the Zika virus, which has left more than 4,000 newborns with shrunken heads. Female spectators and even athletes of childbearing age are being warned by countries and medical professionals around the world to reconsider their plans to travel to Brazil for fear of what could happen to their unborn children after the country was overrun by the mosquito-borne disease.

Read more

Anna Watkins: ‘I want to show women we’re not decrepit after having children’

I just sat on the rowing machine and that was my little break every day – that half-an-hour in my head,” Anna Watkins says as she remembers how she began to dream of the Olympics only nine months ago. Since partnering Katherine Grainger to an imperious victory in the double sculls at London 2012, Watkins had retired from rowing and given birth to two sons.

Read more

Is Boycotting The Olympics The Answer?

The doping revelations that have hit athletics over the past few weeks have been a big wake up call for Olympic sport. I say 'revelations', but actually I don't think many people involved in sport are in the least bit surprised to hear that Russian athletes have been taking drugs.

Read more

Profile: Lisa Carrington

She’s one of the smallest competitors in her field, but she’s a double world champion, an Olympic medallist ... and someone you wouldn’t want to arm-wrestle.

Read more