The community is invited to cool off by the river this weekend while watching the 2022 ACA Open Canoe Slalom Nationals at Centennial Park.
The contest will be from about 9 a.m to 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. Friday through Sunday at the whitewater slalom course on the Arkansas River. Sunday's event will wrap up a little earlier in the day but will finish with a down-river race that will go from the slalom course to the bridge at Raynolds Avenue. The slalom course stretches from about First to Fourth streets.
"We would love to have people watching us," said Alan Whittern, the event organizer. "We were down paddling Sunday morning to check out the course and people started cheering and all we were doing was practicing. It was pretty fun. If people come sit for half an hour and watch, they'll be amazed at what people can do when they've spent a lot of time doing something."
The event came to Cañon City because of a late schedule venue change from Buena Vista.
"People come from all over the country," Whittern said. "We will have some people from Canada coming down."
As of Monday, there were about 42 people pre-registered, but some participants will fill out paperwork the morning of the race.
"We are still recovering from COVID, because when we did this a couple of years ago, we had 105 that preregistered," Whittern said.
The ACA Open Canoe Slalom Nationals is conducted annually in different locations in the U.S. and Canada. This will be the fourth time it is held in Colorado; it was in Durango in 1994, Salida in 2011 and Buena Vista in 2018.
"We are excited to have the opportunity to host the 2022 ACA Open Canoe Slalom Nationals and 2022 NORAM Open Canoe Championships," said Warren Hart, Royal Gorge RIO, VP – River Improvement. "This is the first time a formal race has been held at our whitewater park since we added the slalom course, in-river boulders, and riverbank improvements. The whitewater park was designed and intended for events just like this one so it's great to see it being used. We look forward to hosting many more whitewater slalom events in the future."
Whittern and Hart said everyone has gone out of their way to help with this event, including Rex Brady, the City of Cañon City's parks and open space director; Kyle Horne, the executive director of the Cañon City Area Recreation & Park District; and Jesse Young, the parks foreman for the City of Cañon City.
"The improvements to Centennial Park and its whitewater park have given our town an awesome place to hold events and more importantly, a river park that's increasingly being enjoyed by the community," Hart said. "Come check it out and spend some time down by the river."
The event website may be viewed at https://www.opencanoe2022.com/Index.html.
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