Modern canoeing equals International Canoe Federation

Today you can’t imagine your daily routine without sporting, can you? Even if you don’t do sport yourself, it’s difficult to deny yourself the pleasure of watching some competitions, for instance. Here we will try to explain in plain English why ICF plays a significant role in the discipline.

A little to get acquainted with canoeing

Canoeing has been an Olympic sport since 1936 (it was first included in the 1924 Olympics program as an illustrative event). Except for well-known canoe sprint, there are many other disciplines that use this type of boat. By the way, only the slalom is included in the Olympic program.

The sport is practiced by both men and women. Recently, the program of such tournaments provides mixed obstacles, the so-called mixed ones. There are boats for one participant – one, two participants – doubles and four participants – quads. So there is no wonder that competitions are held at different distances, both in a straight line – 200 meters, 500 meters, 1000 meters – and with turns along the route – 5000 meters.

As for the size of the boats, they all differ depending on the number of crew members. In the modern history of the sport there are ones, twos and fours. There used to be seven-man boats, but they were discontinued in 1979.
Modern boats are: single one 5.2 m long, double one 6.5 m, quad one 11 m long and quad one 9 m long; the width of the boat is free. The weight of a single one is at least 14 kg.

In addition to the facts above, besides academic disciplines and subdisciplines, you may find there are other non-Olympic disciplines of this sport. They are marathon, freestyle, standing or SUP rowing, ocean rowing and dragon boat rowing. For this they are no less interesting and exciting. And every year some of the disciplines of this wonderful sport grow exponentially in terms of the number of people participating. For example, SUP championships and tournaments.

The essence of International Canoe Federation

The International Canoeing Federation (ICF) is the umbrella organization of all national rowing associations all around the globe. Its offices are located in Lausanne, Switzerland, and it manages all aspects of the sport worldwide. 157 countries joined the ICF after seven national entities were admitted at the ICF Congress in Rome in 2008.

Today the ICF is led by Jose Perurena (President), Istvan Vashkuti (First Vice President), Joao Manuel Da Costa Alegre (Second Vice President), Tony Estange (Third Vice President) and Luciano Buonfillo (Treasurer).
To participate in the organization is not that difficult, it consists of continental associations and national members.

Five continental entities are affiliated to the CIF. These associations are in charge of organizing the Continental Championships, supporting their members and communicating their interests at the meetings of the ICF Council. Among them:

  1. European Federation
  2. Pan American Federation
  3. Ocean Federation
  4. Asian Federation
  5. African Federation

Canoeing and ICF are really inseparable

As you can see, the role of the organization can’t be overestimated, the way it manages the development and settlement of tournaments helps significantly to make the discipline upgrading.