A Uni Watch Look at 2024 Olympic Canoe/Kayak Slalom

[Editor’s Note: As we conclude our Uni Watch look at the Olympics uniforms, we have one last entry by Greyson Roberts, who’ll take a look at the kayak/canoe slalom kits. Greyson also posted reviews of both the Men’s and Women’s volleyball unis. Enjoy! — PH]

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2024 Olympic Canoe/Kayak Slalom
by Greyson Roberts

Kayak and Canoe Slalom at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games had some action-packed whitewater moments, including the first American to medal in a slalom event since 2004! While there are plenty of different disciplines in sprinting, slalom is fairly straightforward. On the men’s and women’s sides there were three different competitions each: C1, K1, and the brand new Kayak Cross.

In C1, each competitor goes through the rapids in a canoe, a slightly longer boat that the athlete propels with a single-bladed paddle while kneeling. In K1, the athletes are seated on their hind ends in shorter kayaks armed with a double-bladed paddle to traverse the rapids. And in Kayak Cross, the most electric new entry to the Olympic Games in my opinion, four competitors drop in from 15 feet above the water in kayaks and race to the bottom, knocking and banging all the way down. They even have a designated roll zone, where they must each literally do a barrel roll in order to continue. It. Was. Awesome.

While each country had their own jerseys, very little was seen of them unless they had distinct sleeves, as each event had its own Olympic-branded bib that the competitors would wear. The four K1 and C1 events each had a bib that was mostly white with different colored stripes at the bottom extending upward on the sides to the armpits. Each event used different colors for the stripes, but maintained the same pattern. On the bib was their number in the middle with the Olympic rings above. On the left chest was the Paris 2024 logo, while on the right chest was the event logo, whether kayak or canoe. You’ll also notice that the carbon fiber paddles each had the flag of the athlete using it, which definitely helped identify the athletes on TV with the bibs obscuring the jerseys.

Most helmets were a bit bland as well, as most full-time athletes typically have sponsor-laden helmets which can’t be worn at the Olympics, but I’ll highlight a few of my favorites that I was able to find.

With that, let’s take a look at the bibs and some action shots!

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Women’s K1 (Kayak) — The women’s kayak competition began on Day 1 of the Games, with bibs whose stripes alternated with what were technically two-toned red, but appeared to be pink and purple stripes when wet. I’ll also use this space to highlight the helmet of bronze medalist Kimberley Woods of Great Britain. The purple galaxy helmet with the union jack design on top was probably my favorite from all the competitors, and it kind of matched her boat too!

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Men’s C1 (Canoe) — The other slalom event to start on Day 1, men’s canoe used bibs with two-toned gold stripes for their competition. While silver medalist Adam Burgess of Team GB had my favorite reaction, I must give a big hats off to gold medalist Nicolas Gestin of host-nation France for giving the hand heart to the home crowd.

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Women’s C1 (Canoe) — The women’s canoe slalom heats opened up Day 4 in Paris, with all the athletes’ bibs carrying green stripes, although they too suffered the same fate as the red. Once they were sufficiently wet, they looked much more teal than green. This was also the event where Evy Leibfarth won bronze, the first American medal in a slalom event in twenty years! Her rainbow-esque canoe looked pretty snazzy to boot!

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Men’s K1 (Kayak) — The men’s kayak slalom ran concurrently with women’s C1 and featured its athletes sporting stripes in shades of blue. Some more great celebration shots here in what was probably the best of the stripe colors in the K1 or C1 events.

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Kayak Cross — Now here’s the fun part, and the competition for which I included the most photos because holy cow. The last event on either side was the kayak cross, a brand new event that pitted competitors directly against one another to race through a course rather than doing individual time trials. Some athletes even wore bigger helmets that covered their jaws for this event, as they were free to bump and knock each other throughout the course to win.

Once qualified by time trial, heats were run and a bracket-style tournament ensued. Each heat of the tournament consisted of four competitors, each wearing a different-colored jersey based on their qualifying time. Red was the fastest, then blue, green, and finally yellow as the slowest qualifier in the heat. This is where all the colors we’ve seen so far came back in a big way. We saw the same color stripes as the earlier events, but this time they covered the entire jersey. To me, this was by far the most visually appealing event of slalom because the colors meant something! I hope this event sticks around at future Olympics because it was a ton of fun. Also of note, the women’s gold medalist, Noeme Fox of Australia, is the younger sister of Jessica Fox, who swept the C1 and K1 gold medals. What a family!

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Phil here. Thanks, Greyson! And thanks also for the wonderful volleyball writeups as well!