John Gregory | Sportscene - Welcome to my new ‘column’ dedicated to Canoe Slalom. So what should you expect this year? The year immediately following the Olympics is always an exciting one in itself. We see a change of guard with some retirements. New Olympic medallists want the World Championship title more than ever. Those who did not win gold or medal in London want to prove they still have what it takes. Finally, we welcome a new group of Juniors/U23 who are pushing the old masters with their youth. A new 4 year cycle has begun and athletes have already sets their sights on gold in Rio in 2016.

The Junior U23 Worlds are in Liptovsky Mikulas (Slovakia) and the Senior Worlds go again to Prague (Czech Republic) but on a brand new course. This year the European Championships take us to Krakow (Poland) for the seniors and Bourg St Maurice (France) for the Junior/U23. In between we have five World Cup races in Cardiff (UK), Augsburg (Germany), La Seu D’Urgell (Spain), Tacen (Slovenia) and a final in Bratislava (Slovakia). So, all in all, a heavy European centred 2013! It is good to see some continental races outside Europe, for a full listing follow this link: www.sportscene.tv/whitewater/canoe-slalom/calendar

Asked about the challenge represented by a brand new course in Prague, Olympic Campion Daniele Molmenti interviewed for Sportscene said; “I’ve already paddled the new course, but they just replaced the old wheels with the plastic blocks so the configuration is the same and the water moves as before. For the preparation I will be training there more days as possible but September is still far, there are many steps to go before! Tim Baillie, British C2 gold medallist added; “I haven't had the chance to see the new course in Troja yet. Whether the course is old or new the challenge to race the worlds is really the same, you want to spend as much time as possible training on the course so that you feel as comfortable as possible on that specific venue. We are planning to travel to Prague for a training camp early in the year so we can evaluate the character of the river which will then inform our training plan to prepare for the race”.

Commenting on his expectations on 2013 Daniele said; “I am the first K1 man winning all the main titles and this makes me so proud! I had a great sport career already and I can just adding more medals in my palms, but more important I just want to continue to enjoy the sportsman life! Tim is philosophical about their top spot as C2 Olympic champions; “I guess the idea of keeping our No 1 position in C2 is a bit abstract, the bottom line is that we won one race by around 0.3 of a sec so if we were going to try and defend that advantage it would be pretty stressful. Based on our career so far it would be crazy for me to suddenly expect to start winning every race because we are Olympic Champions. The thing that I'm proudest of about the Olympics is that Etienne and myself managed to get a performance out that was really very close to our maximum potential, it wasn't a perfect run by any means but on such a hard course we felt that it was very close to the best run we could have done.

Here is a round-up of the most recent key ICF event results:

In my blog post on August 2nd I cited Jessica Fox with my most promising paddler award, following her Olympic silver medal in the same year as becoming Junior World Champion in both K1W and C1W. This year, no longer a junior we should expect her to be competing at the U23 Championships in Liptovsky, Prague Worlds and World Cup races. As we look further forward it is only a question of at which Olympics and which colour medal she will win next.

Finally, I am delighted to be joining the Sportscene contributors’ team. If you are an accomplished slalom paddler then good luck this season and alternatively if you are completely new to canoeing then I hope this encourages you to pick up a paddle for the first time. Happy reading.