Parc Olimpic del Segre

La Seu d’Urgell is a small town in the Pyrenees, standing where the rivers Segre and Valira meet. The river Segre rises in France and the Valira in Andorra. La Seu d’Urgell with its 13.300 inhabitants, is a market and service centre for the Catalan mountain region and a tourist stop-off point.

The presence of sport of wild water canoeing in the village dates back to 1964 with the set-up of the local club and the International Kayak-Canoeing week in 1972. Apart from many Spanish Championships, International competitions were held in the area. For example, Slalom competitions in the European Cup were held in 1980 and 1986, as well as, Slalom competitions in the World Junior Championships in 1988.

With the original idea of the Olympic Games for Barcelona 1992, thoughts turned to a reintroduction of the wild water slalom discipline in the official sports programme. In October 1986 Barcelona was chosen by IOC to stage the Games of the XXV Olympiad and its candidature dossier contained the proposal to stage the slalom competitions on the river Valira in La Seu d’Urgell.

From then onwards, plans began to take shape, thanks to the joined efforts of COOB’92, the ICF and the Spanish Federation. In Stockholm, in April 1987, the Executive Board of the IOC approved the inclusion of slalom canoeing (for the first time in the sports programme since 1972 when in Augsburg, on the Munich Olympic Games, it had been included as exhibition sport) with the choice of the artificial course in the Parc Olímpic del Segre as the competition venue.

The Parc Olímpic del Segre has been leading the development of competition slalom venues in the following matters:

• World first pumping station
• World first closing circle concept ( U shape)
• World first canoe boat lift
• World unique washing and drying equipment

In 1993, the IOC awarded the facilities a prize for its integration of sport and environment. Later on, in 1995, it was awarded a bronze prize by the International Association for Sport and Leisure Facilities (IAKS) for its post-Olympic utilization, interesting engineering execution and the differentiated landscape design.

The 1992 Olympic Games canoe slalom competitions was a success. Since that event a significant progress has been made in this Olympic discipline. The Spanish organization has continued to contribute to the promotion of this sport in the 1999 Slalom World Championships, which was the Olympic selection event for Sydney 2000 O.G., and in the 2009 Slalom World Championships.