Royal Canoe Club - The International Canoe Federation tweeted the news somewhat excitedly: ”So the International Olympic Committee has confirmed that Canoeing will be on the Olympic Programme for 2020 and 2024!!!”

In fact, while canoeing was not thought to have been in serious danger its future was subject to a vote.

Modern pentathlon, taekwondo and field hockey were all deemed more likely to be dismissed from the 26-strong sporting programme, according to the LA Times. These three sports, plus wrestling and canoeing, were the five considered for dismissal from the 26-strong Olympic sports programme.

How did the voting proceed?

1. Round one: wrestling and modern pentathlon received five votes for dismissal with hockey getting two and canoeing and taekwondo getting one each.
2. In round two, there were seven votes for wrestling, four for modern pentathlon and one each for canoeing, hockey and taekwondo.
3. There was then a run-off in which canoeing received three votes, hockey had six votes and five voted for taekwondo.
4. Taekwondo was saved in the fourth round when wrestling again received the most votes.
5. The final three sports considered for dismissal were wrestling, hockey and modern pentathlon. Wrestling then scored eight votes with hockey and pentathlon receiving three each.

Modern Pentathlon was saved by political manoeuvring – it is, after all, the sport which the Olympics founding father, Baron Pierre De Coubertin, himself dreamed up, given it required all the necessary qualities of the ‘ideal’ soldier – running, shooting, horse riding and swimming.

Wrestling wasn’t seen as a likely victim, mainly because it’s been part of the modern Games since they began in 1896. But while political lobbying contributed to the survival of modern pentathlon, there was little of it for wrestling.

So what next for canoeing, now it’s survived the cut? It needs to win more friends, that’s for sure. Perhaps the most obvious thing is the inclusion of more women’s events – gender equality, in other words.

It’s interesting that after the ICF’s own tweet, the first reply was a suggestion from a Twitter user that the ICF ought to consider this (see top picture).

Our friends at Sportscene have this considered view by Elaine Keene, published in the last couple of days.

The key issue for the proponents of women’s Canadian canoe events in sprint and slalom is this: the Olympic Games are not a development forum where women can gradually get to grips with the sport.

The Worlds and other regional multi-sport events are – so it’s good news, for instance, that Women’s C1 will be on the programme of the 17th Pan-American Games in 2015, according to this report.

If you have a bunch of female sprint C1 paddlers at an Olympic Games who look anything like the, dare I say, rather incompetent finalists at the 2010 World Championships canoeing could end up in deep water (no pun intended).*

In 2010, for the benefit of those neither there nor watching the whole thing on Eurosport the women sprint C1 paddlers proved themselves incapable of lining up to race in a reasonable amount of time, thanks to the wind. It was not an edifying sight and anyone seeing a repeat of that at an Olympic Games will doubtless fear for canoeing’s future in the Olympic programme.

The solution has got to be this: let’s work out how to get women’s C1 events in the Olympic programme as soon as there are enough genuinely world-class competitors to make it worthy of inclusion. That means the sport needs to work on developing an exciting women’s C1 competition in sprint and slalom at the two disciplines’ respective World Championships as soon as possible.

* Note Sportscene. We think that regarding women's Canadian canoeing both slalom and sprint developed significantly since 2010.