By JIM KERNAGHAN -- London Free Press
"I blew it."
Canada's whitewater kayak world champion David Ford didn't quite put it that way Tuesday after failing to qualify for the medal round.
He was more explicit.
"I couldn't have had a better week of preparation," the Edmonton native said. "I've been here almost five months total in the past year. I was beating all these guys all week and to come out and do that . . . I feel I just let one go for Canada."
Slaloming down a mountain of water is a pretty distant relative to doing it on snow, even if the goals are the same. Which is to say arrive alive and if you're the fastest through the 25-gate test (in this sport, the poles are suspended above the roiling river), all the better.
On a hot, shimmering day before a crowd of more than 12,000 in Penrith, Ford took a 50-point penalty during his second run for not getting through one gate and he was history on what he says is the best artificial course he's ever been on.
He had a pair of alibis you could float a battleship in but failed to take either of them:
* A water surge that also knocked off a few competitors before and after him;
* A judging blunder on his penalty (one judge said his head was half inside the slalom gate, another said it was completely in, then changed that ruling).
The Canadian team launched an unsuccessful protest but Ford pinned the only bottom finish of his career on himself.
"It wasn't pressure. The pressure to win at the worlds was greater. Maybe there wasn't enough pressure, I don't know. I was slapped in the face today."
It struck one, as the racers came down, that their sport is like wrestling a lion. Ford corrected that. It's like dancing with a lion.
This one bit badly. Ford finished 22nd of 23 competitors, his worst finish since he was 13 and taking on 18-year-olds in Edmonton.
"I'm gonna cheer on the rest of the Canadian team and for sure I'm gonna defend my title in Atlanta next year," he said. "And if we're in, I'll be in the next Olympics in 2004."
It's an odd but exciting sport.
One suspects whitewater kayaking has the same stigma a few other down-market Olympic sports have.
Big during the Games and then on the back burner for the next four years. Olympic cycling has left vacant velodromes worldwide.
At least fencing venues can be used for storing fences, or something afterward.
Still, there's a chance for some legacy here and not only for the kayakers and canoe competitors. With their Harbour Bridge climb and Aussie rules football along with a lot of other challenges, Australians don't mind a dollop of danger.
If people are willing to part with more than $100 a head to clomp up the bridge, surely they'll pay that to tumble down the rapids like a twig in a turbine.
Tornadoes, plagues and other natural disasters being in vogue these days, riding a flood has to have mass appeal.
For those who kayak competitively, it is rather unforgiving.
"We all prefer the artificial courses because they're tougher," Ford said. "Natural river courses are pretty predictable. In these, an eddy should do one thing but sometimes does just the reverse. It's challenging."
So, it seems, are the people who run it. A protest, a tougher penalty mark over an erased one, a world champion who comes to the worst result of his career on the day it mattered most.
Turbulent sport, this.
