Guy Dresser | Royal Canoe Club - The chairman of the International Canoe Federation Marathon Racing Committee, Jorn Cronberg, has responded to comments by paddlers that rule changes, including a raft of penalties for aggressive behaviour, are somehow detrimental to the sport.

He insisted that all that had happened was some guidelines had been published to make teams aware of what they should be looking out for to avoid incurring penalties – it was this guidance, with diagrams, that was published with the latest ICF Marathon Committee newsletter.

In a statement Mr Cronberg said:

“The ICF Congress in 2012 passed the amended rules for Marathon.

“The main complaint seems to be about squeezing, and we understand that the guidelines could be misinterpreted. The intention from the ICF is actually just to explain that we are looking for punishing aggressive paddling when others suffer from that.

“For the ICF it is very important to make clear when training the [international race officials] is that the diagrams, particularly No 4 (see picture below) and the start one are just extreme examples of what can happen and not new rules.  It is not intended that squeezing be abolished but to make it fair as it happens in the groups all the time.  The main concern is to reduce aggressive behaviour causing collisions or worse.”

The full ICF newsletter recently published, with all the various diagrams in it, can be read here.