Dartmouth to host sprint paddling event
The world’s best canoers and kayakers are coming to Dartmouth. Again.
Lake Banook was selected in Tokyo on Friday as the site for the 2022 ICF Sprint World Championships, an event being branded as Canoe ’22.
“We submitted in advance, and all the bidders come to Tokyo and we present in front of the board for the International Canoe Federation,” said L.A. Dempster, the event co-chair along with Chris Keevill. “We show a video and then we do a 10-minute presentation and we present to about 36 people. There’s all kinds of bidding going on, for whitewater, sprint, marathon, so all the different countries that are coming to bid for a world championship do their presentation.”
Last year representatives went to Manchester, England, to bid for the 2021 world championship. While unsuccessful, Dempster said they learned a lot in that bid, and what it was going to take to be successful.
Dartmouth has previously hosted senior world championships in 2009 and 1997, and the junior worlds in 1987. In the fall of this year, the 2018 Pan Am Sprint Championships will come to Lake Banook, giving Canoe ’22 organizers a chance at a dry run.
“We’ve already started assembling our host organizing committee, so we have some people in place,” said Dempster. “Our plan is to get everyone’s feet wet this fall, and then build up to lots of things: medal ceremonies, festivals, events for the cities, but also making sure we have the race course and our facilities upgraded, so that when the world does come, we have the best to offer them in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.”
The event will create an as yet undetermined number of jobs, and also requires about 500 volunteers. Over the next few years, Dempster and Keevil plan to acquire wakeless pontoon boats and a permanent video broadcast anchoring system, and do upgrades to return lanes, the finish area and the judges’ tower at Banook.
“It’s been a while since it’s had a full upgrade, so we’re looking at doing that to continue to be competitive with the world,” Dempster said.
“Our other main project is that we have an athletes’ training centre that’s just behind the judges’ tower. That was put in place in 2009 and it has been such a huge success that we are now bursting at the seams in that facility, so we need to spend some money upgrading that, increasing the size of it.”
Dempster said the fact the local paddling community is experienced at putting on world championships will be very beneficial. But, she said, lots has changed since 2009.
“Broadcast is a much bigger part of the sport now, there are some new events in the sport and there are things we would like to do differently,” she said. “The focus, obviously, is on the races but we want to inspire lots of local young kids to come out and watch these events, and hopefully they’re inspired by the athletes that they see race.”
In the final bidding process, Canada was selected over Russian and Romanian competing bids. Athletes from 70 countries are expected to attend. Funding for the event will be provided by all three levels of government, corporate sponsors and participating countries. The organizing committee plans to create a $1-million legacy to benefit local paddling initiatives.