California whitewater rafters push for competitive rafting as Olympic sport
By Brian Hickey
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SACRAMENTO, California (KCRA) — A group of young whitewater rafters from Northern California hope their sport will be included in the Summer Olympics as soon as 2028.
The team called the “Troublemakers” out of Coloma say they’d like to see competitive rafting join kayak and canoe races already on the Olympic lineup.
The team trains on the South Fork of the American River, east of Sacramento, for events including slalom, sprint, head-to-head and downriver racing.
In April, the team claimed a silver medal in the head-to-head race at the Whitewater Rafting Championship in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The event pits two boats, each with a team of four paddlers, against each other on a winding and twisting course where the fastest one to the bottom wins and advances to the next round.
“You try to beat the other boat, there’s multiple strategies which include trying to bump them into an eddy and you really want to get in front of them and we won a medal in that,” team member Spencer Rodgers said.
Kayak and canoe races are already contested during the summer Games.
Rafters say they would use the same venue for their races with minor modifications.
The “Troublemakers” are currently training for the Pan-American Championships to be held in Pucon, Chile, in October.
They hope this race will be a good show for the International Olympic Committee and their consideration of the new events.
“That event is a precursor of pushing rafting towards the Olympics and showing the IOC that it can be done,” coach Aaron Tippett said.
A major hurdle for the Olympic bid continues to be a division between the World Rafting Federation and the International Rafting Federation, two organizations that have split the countries participating in international races.
“They each have about 40 countries and for a sport to be Olympic sized they need to have about 60 countries competing. They both have 40 so there is a push to move together, the WRF and IRF,” said team member Ethan Somer.
“As we speak, there are communications that those two governing bodies might be combining or at least having the athletes competing together,” Tippett added.
The young athletes say one of their favorite parts about international races, is meeting their competitors from around the world.
“That is one of the best parts of rafting, just meeting new people, especially meeting new people from across the world,” Tippett said.
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