Canoeing at the 1972 Summer Olympics

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canoeing_at_the_1972_Summer_Olympics

Canoeing at the
1972 Summer Olympics

Slalom

C-1 men

C-2 men

K-1 men women

Sprint

C-1 1000 m men

C-2 1000 m men

K-1 500 m women

K-1 1000 m men

K-2 500 m women

K-2 1000 m men

K-4 1000 m men

At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, seven events in sprint canoe racing were
contested, and for the first time at the Olympic Games, four events in slalom canoeing were
also contested, at the Augsburg Eiskanal.

Event Gold Silver Bronze

Men's C-1 Reinhard Eiben Reinhold Kauder Jamie McEwan

 East Germany  West Germany  United States

Men's C-2 Walter Hofmann Hans-Otto Schumacher Jean-Louis Olry

and Rolf-Dieter Amend and Wilhelm Baues and Jean-Claude Olry
 East Germany  West Germany  France
Men's K-1 Siegbert Horn Norbert Sattler Harald Gimpel
 East Germany  Austria  East Germany

Women's K-1 Angelika Bahmann Gisela Grothaus Magdalena Wunderlich

 East Germany  West Germany  West Germany

Event Gold Silver Bronze

C-1 1000 Ivan Patzaichin Tamás Wichmann Detlef Lewe

metres  Romania  Hungary  West Germany

C-2 1000 Vladas Česiūnas Ivan Patzaichin Fedia Damianov

metres and Yuri Lobanov and Serghei and Ivan Burtchin
 Soviet Union Covaliov  Bulgaria
 Romania

K-1 1000 Aleksandr Shaparenko Rolf Peterson Géza Csapó

metres  Soviet Union  Sweden  Hungary

K-2 1000 Nikolai Gorbachev József Deme Władysław Szuszkiewicz

metres and Viktor Kratasyuk and János Rátkai and Rafał Piszcz
 Soviet Union  Hungary  Poland

K-4 1000  Soviet  Romania (ROU)  Norway (NOR)

metres Union (URS) Aurel Vernescu Egil Søby
Yuri Filatov Mihai Zafiu Steinar Amundsen
Yuri Stetsenko Roman Vartolomeu Tore Berger
Volodymyr Morozov Atanase Sciotnic Jan Johansen
Valeri Didenko

1  Soviet Union (URS) 6 0 0 6

2  East Germany (GDR) 4 1 1 6

3  Romania (ROU) 1 2 1 4

4  West Germany (FRG) 0 3 2 5

5  Hungary (HUN) 0 2 2 4

6  Austria (AUT) 0 1 0 1

 Netherlands (NED) 0 1 0 1

 Sweden (SWE) 0 1 0 1

9  Bulgaria (BUL) 0 0 1 1
  Norway (NOR) 0 0 1 1

 Poland (POL) 0 0 1 1

 United States (USA) 0 0 1 1

Totals (13 nations) 11 11 11 33

During the Congress of the International Canoe Federation (ICF) in 1966 that the Deutscher
Kanu-Verband (DKV) decides to make all possible efforts to include canoeing slalom at the
Olympic Games.

During the 67th Session of the IOC in Mexico in 1968, Canoe Slalom and Wild-Water Racing
asked to be included into the Olympic Programme. The ICF presents an exposed about
these two disciplines.[1] The meeting decides to add canoe slalom to the program with the
restriction that the event must not take place too far from the Olympic city.[2]

If the proposition was accepted at the Session in June 1969 these two events will be part of
the canoeing events that will make up one of the 21 sports of the Olympic Program in 1972.

During the Executive Board meeting in 1969 in Lausanne, Mr. de Coquereaumont said that
although the slalom could be held in the centre of Munich, but the river-racing event would
have to be held in Garmisch, 300 km from Munich. The Executive Board decided to
recommend slalom for Munich Olympic Games, but the question would later be reviewed.
However, River-racing was not approved.[3]

The Organizing Committee examines the possibility of building the Canoe-Slalom tracks in
Munich about 5–6 km from the Olympic Village. The architects and technical staff examine
two possibilities on the Isar River in the center of Munich. But in the construction problem
there are some technical difficulties. The third possibility is to organize the Canoe-Slalom
competition in Augsburg, which is about 64 km from Munich too far of the Olympic Village :
referencing to the decision which was taken in 1969 the canoe slalom competition have to
be held as near as possible to this Village. IOC decides that Canoe slalom for the Munich
Games will be omitted from the programme if they would have to take place in Augsburg.

Finally, IOC gives final approval to organize events on Eiskanal in Augsburg during the
Amsterdam's session in 1970 : Request that the Canoe Slalom for the Munich Games 1972
be held at Augsburg because a railway service will be ensured between the Olympic Village
and Augsburg and will take 30 minutes. However, the decision will be reviewed for the next
Olympic Games.

The slalom events will not take part anymore of the program for the Montreal Games in
1976. This experiment will not be repeated before in 1992 in Barcelona.[4]

The decision to include canoe slalom events at the Olympic program was taken during the
Cold War. Moreover, Germany was the symbol of world division.[5] Consequently, the
Olympic events become the scene of a confrontation between the West Germans and East
take place at Augsburg on Eiskanal. So, they used to train in this whitewater stadium.
However, the East German National Federation canoe sends his national coach, Mr.
Lempert in West-Germany. He pretends to be an entrepreneur of the International Canoe
Federation. He can reproduce the plans of Eiskanal. A reproduction of the whitewater
stadium is built around Zwickau.[6] The both Germanys are again equal. Finally it is the East
Germans who win with four gold medals and one bronze against three silver medals and
one bronze for West Germany.

1. ^ library.la84.org/OlympicInformationCenter/OlympicReview/1969
2. ^ library.la84.org/OlympicInformationCenter/OlympicReview/1968
3. ^ Minutes of the meeting of the executive board in Lausanne in 1969, Archives of
olympic studies centre
4. ^ www.olympic.org Archived February 14, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
5. ^ Maurice VAÏSSE, Les relations internationales depuis 1945, Pars, A. Collin, 2002
(1ère éd. 1990), p.81.