Slalom Kayaking by Kaelin Friedenson

The two weeks before this one, I was in the regional slalom team camp. It was super fun. Slalom is a little different than freestyle. One, Slalom boats are a lot longer than freestyle boats and they have a lot less volume. Slalom boats are also usually carbon. In slalom, you want to go as fast as you can going through all the gates. If the gate is green, you go through it downstream, but if the gate is red you go up it. When you are going through the course, every time you hit a gate, you get two seconds added to your time. If you miss a gate, you get fifty seconds added to your time. There are many different ways slalom kayaking and freestyle kayaking can relate and help each other. For example, this one time I had to make a gate. I thought I missed it, but caught a hole to surf it across and made the gate. With out knowing how to surf, and other freestyle skills, I wouldn't have been able to make the gate. Slalom also helps a lot in running rivers. This is because in Slalom, catching gates is similar to catching eddies or making a certain line through a rapid. Even if I probably would choose to paddle freestyle over slalom, I still think Slalom is a great way to build skills and helps a lot in my kayaking abilities.

Thanks for reading!

Kaelin.