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GO PADDLE No. 29 · SLALOM SERIES ②
The Godfather of Slalom Who Designed Olympic Events
Jean-Michel Prono, who first proposed Kayak Cross for the Olympics: three days in Inje
 
Jean-Michel Prono, standing on a rock on the Naerincheon bank, points at a gate hanging over the rapids, beside a Korea Canoe Federation staff member
Image edited with AI
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Hi from GO PADDLE 👋 We’re back with Part 2 of our slalom series 🛶 This time we follow Jean-Michel Prono, who led canoe slalom at the International Canoe Federation for 20 years — his three days in Inje and the conversation we had on his last evening 😊
🏅 On the water at the Asian Games
🛶 Canoe slalom
Of the six events, China won four golds and Japan two. Two of Korea's three paddlers made their finals: Baek Seo-jin finished seventh in the men's K1 and Lee Jeong-seop eighth in the men's C1. Trained on Korea's own rivers like the Naerincheon, they read the water all the way to an Asian Games final. We're proud of them. Well done 👏
🏄 Surfing
At the sport's Asian Games debut, Japan won both golds. Korea's Kanoa Heejae reached the quarterfinals and finished fifth. His first wave was on his father's SUP. GO PADDLE will tell the family's story soon.
 
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Kayak Cross made its debut as a medal event: four paddlers start at once and race down the whitewater, bumping into one another as they go. The race goes back to 2006. That year Jean-Michel Prono, then chair of the ICF Slalom Committee, first proposed a new Olympic format in which paddlers race side by side: the ‘head-to-head’.
Having watched his idea reach the Olympic stage 18 years later, he was standing beside the Naerincheon, a mountain stream in Korea, the following year. In September 2025 he came to Inje in Gangwon Province as the invited coach of a canoe slalom training camp. Exhausted after three days of lectures and on-water sessions, he first politely declined the interview; only after we asked again did he sit down with us on the last evening.
The interview lasted 8 minutes and 39 seconds. In that short time he returned to the message he has carried for 20 years. This issue is built around that interview. 🛶
🎙 Interview
“My first contact with Korea was in 2005”
He first came for the Asian Championships 20 years ago — and came back the year after completing his 20 years as ICF slalom chair
“So my name is Jean-Michel Prono, former French slalom athlete, then coach of the slalom Olympic women French team. And further, after being a long time coach for over 20 years, I moved to the organization side and be part of the ICF board and chair of the slalom committee for over 20 years.”
Inje, 2025.9.17 (original English)
 
Jean-Michel Prono lecturing in front of a screen reading Canoe slalom Seminar
The first lecture, on the first morning · 2025.9.15 · Image edited with AI
“And that, that’s the way I met for the first time in Korea, 2005. I came here in Inje because of the Asian Championships to be organized in Korea. And it was my first contact with your country and with your federation, 2005.”
Day-1 lecture, 2025.9.15 (original English)
“So from this wide experience and long time in slalom, I still keep my passion, and I had the opportunity to come and meet Korea (…), already a long time ago, for the Asian Championships here organized in Inje. And since then I really kept a very good relationship and I have a dream (…), it’s to bring slalom in Korea. And that’s mostly the reason why I am again today, under the support of the Olympic Committee, here to give a seminar to the slalom community, coaches, athletes.”
Interview, 2025.9.17 (original English)
The 2025 Canoe Slalom Training Camp and Seminar was hosted by the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee and organized by the Korea Canoe Federation. It ran for three days, September 15–17: on-water training on the Naerincheon, theory in the seminar room at Jajak Namu Stay. Those who completed it received a certificate.
For Kim Hyun-su, head coach of Korea’s national canoe slalom team, this camp meant more than most. As Part 1 told, he began travelling alone to France and Spain at 21 to learn slalom, and during Prono’s time at the ICF he was invited to its Talent Identification Programme (TIP) as Korea’s representative, training among athletes from many countries. Lessons he once had to go abroad for were now being taught in Korea. On the camp’s last day, he said:
Kim Hyun-su “Inviting such a distinguished figure from abroad to hold a training camp like this in Korea is itself a first. So we had high expectations before it began. I sat in on the morning classes too, and the content was really useful. I relearned a lot myself, so I think this training camp has been a great success.”
Kim Hyun-su · head coach, Korea national canoe slalom team
Background What he did at the ICF
He was technical operations manager for canoe slalom at the 2004 Athens Olympics. The same year, at the ICF Congress in Stockholm, he beat the sitting chair 51 votes to 45 to become Slalom Committee chair, and he served for 20 years until November 2024. During his tenure Olympic slalom grew from four events to six, with equal numbers for men and women, and he first proposed what became Olympic Kayak Cross (see the timeline below). As his term ended in November 2024, he was named an ICF Honorary Member at the federation’s centenary Congress, a role he still holds.
🛶 Kayak Cross timeline
2006.1
Warsaw, Poland · ICF Olympic Disciplines Symposium
2015.8
Pau, France · World Cup
First demonstration race — ‘boater cross’, invited athletes only
2016.6
Ivrea, Italy · World Cup
2017.9
Pau, France · World Championships
First world title — raced as ‘extreme slalom’
2020.12
IOC
Approved for Paris 2024 — one event each for men and women
2022.9
ICF Board
2024.8
Paris, France · Olympic Games
Four kayakers tangled together in whitewater beside a green gate at the Paris Olympic kayak cross
Kayak cross at Paris 2024 — four paddlers race down the same water · August 2024 · edited · Photo AlSepPhoenix · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY 4.0
In the January 2006 Warsaw document, he argued that a head-to-head format could open more opportunities for developing nations to reach the Games. Looking back as his term ended, he said: “Kayak cross was the reason why I stayed for the mandate from Tokyo to Paris.”
🎙 Interview
“Korean loves outdoor sports” — and the condition that follows at once
Asked about Korea’s potential, he began with praise and ended with the request he has made for 20 years
 
Jean-Michel Prono in a red sweater, seated and talking
Jean-Michel Prono during the interview · Inje, 2025.9.17
“From the beginning I believe, because Korean athletes in general and Korean people are skilled and profiled for outdoor sports. Korean loves outdoor sports. And I believe that canoe slalom is an option for the Korean Canoe Federation, for the athletes of this nation.”
Original English
It isn’t just a compliment. In the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s 2025 National Sports Participation Survey, Koreans’ main activities were walking (40.5%), bodybuilding (17.5%) and hiking (17.1%), and hiking grew the most in a year. People who head for the mountains at weekends head for the water in summer: some 30,000 visitors come every year to raft the very Naerincheon where the camp was held. Plenty of Koreans already enjoy whitewater. Canoe slalom is the sport of racing it with skill.
What came right after that sentence is the heart of the interview. The moment he spoke of Korea’s potential, he went straight to facilities.
“And that’s why I’ve been so motivated in promoting white water course in this country. And I have to say that this is probably the major improvement to be made in this country is establishing a permanent white water course where the athletes, instructors, coaches will be training and educating. And that’s why I’ve been traveling often, meeting authorities, meeting cities, to promote and try to establish this white water course that Korea need and deserve.

Natural river in Korea exist, but we have not yet found a place where we could establish a permanent slalom course. And for the real progress and for really establishing a strong Korean team, we need to have a permanent facility. And that’s why I’m still dreaming and working with the authority and the federation to promote such a facility and hope for one day having Korean athletes at the World Championships and the Olympic Games.”
Original English
In an 8-minute-39-second interview, he spent a full minute and more, from 2:17 to 3:22, on this one subject. The question was about “Korea’s potential”; half of the answer was about a venue.
🌊 Technique · Instructors
“Slalom was a game people invented to be safer on whitewater rivers”
Asked where slalom stands in canoeing, he worked his way to the answer, starting from its origins
 
Top-down view of rapids. White water (the main current) flows down on both sides of a large boulder; directly below the boulder lies calm green water (the eddy), where a kayaker floats facing downstream. Yellow arrows show the water circling back upstream inside the eddy; red dotted lines mark the boundary between white water and calm water (the eddy line)
AI-generated image
“From the beginning, actually slalom was a game, a skilled game that people invent to be more accurate, safer in paddling in the white water river. When they were running rivers, they want to be more safety, be more accurate, exact, better skilled, so they train in doing slalom even in flat water. So that was the origin.”
Original English
This is why the sport is not someone else’s business. Before slalom was a race, it was a way to train for safety on whitewater. In fact, half of the 15 slides in the three-day seminar were about the structure of water, not paddling: the eddy behind an obstacle, looking upstream, the key zones to spot in a rapid, and the four zones of a smooth, pyramid-shaped wave. A ‘green’ wave is one that has not broken; its four zones are the downhill face, the trough, the uphill face and the crest. The downhill face, where the water pours down, carries the most force; the trough and the crest are points where the forces balance; and the uphill face, working against gravity, is weaker.
 
Side view of a smooth wave on a mountain river, its surface divided into four colours: the red downslope carries the strongest force, the yellow trough and crest are where forces balance, and the light-blue upslope carries a relatively weak force. A kayaker who has come down the downslope and through the trough is climbing the upslope toward the crest.
The four zones of a smooth wave · AI-generated image
As coach Kim Young-mi put it in Part 1, on whitewater the same gate is different water two seconds later. Anyone who teaches SUP or kayaking on rivers will know this. Run the same course twice on the same day and the water is different. What a lesson has to teach is not only the moves but how to read the structure of the water in front of you right now.
🏛 History · Venues
“When you are Olympic discipline, you have support from the government”
The growth formula he described — and the channel of running water it needed in order to work
“And the slalom changed a lot when it has been introduced in the Olympic Games. (…) First time in 1972, and we waited for another 20 years to be in Olympics again in Barcelona Olympic Games. (…) Along now more than 20 years, 30 years of Olympic Games, this popularity has been increasing thanks for the TV exposure, thanks to the status of the Olympic discipline. When you are Olympic discipline, you have support from the government, and the people start taking interest. (…) What the spectators like in slalom probably is it looks dangerous, it looks very risky, it looks also fresh, the water, the white water safely (…)”
Original English
That 1972 Olympic debut was possible because the world’s first artificial whitewater course existed in Augsburg, Germany: the Eiskanal. The history of this sport was written not by rivers but by channels. How that channel became the model for whitewater venues around the world is the story of Part 3.
White water rushing down a concrete channel between grassy terraced banks at the Augsburg Eiskanal, with a red kayak running between gates
The Augsburg Eiskanal — the world’s first artificial whitewater course, venue of slalom at the 1972 Munich Olympics · August 2007 · Photo buzzard525 · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY 3.0
🌧 On site · Safety
Rain fell on day three — and that morning’s lecture had already given the answer
When the water level changes, the gate rules themselves cannot be met · and this river’s eddies are not balanced left and right
On the afternoon of September 17, the last day of the camp, it rained. Our footage shows the Naerincheon swollen and brown. Two days earlier, at the same spot, you could see the stones on the riverbed.
Clear green rapids on the Naerincheon with gates hanging overhead and coaches standing on the rocks
Day one · Sept 15, afternoon
 The Naerincheon swollen with fast brown water, people hanging gates at the bank
Day three · Sept 17, afternoon
The same Naerincheon slalom course · Photos: GO PADDLE
That afternoon was set aside for designing the course and hanging the gates for the national team selection race planned for the next day.
Kim Hyun-su “The weather has turned bad, so we don’t yet know what will happen with tomorrow’s race. I think we can look at the conditions again tomorrow morning and decide whether to go ahead.”
Head coach Kim Hyun-su · day three of the camp
As it happened, Prono’s lecture that very morning had already explained the situation. A gate pole must hang 20 cm above the water, and when the water surges it becomes unclear where to measure from.
 
Jean-Michel Prono holding a chocolate bar above his head to show the height of a gate pole
“So 20 centimeters is this chocolate tablet. 20. Okay? It’s not twice this.” — Prono showing the 20 cm gate height with a chocolate bar · day-3 morning lecture · 2025.9.17 · The chocolate bar was a gift from Yeonsu and Junsu Na, brothers who race slalom in New Zealand, shared with all the participants
“So if you have a water doing this, this, you have to raise the pole 20 centimeters to the highest position of the water, but when the water is low, means that you have 50 centimeters. And this is unfair because it’s changing, (…) it’s not fair, and it’s variable, and the gate judging is even more complicated.”
Day-3 morning lecture (original English)
In the same lecture he also pointed out the limits of the Naerincheon itself. A slalom course is fair only when the upstream gates on the left and right are of similar difficulty, yet here, he said, “we have reasonable eddy on the right, but no eddy on the left.” So it is “more difficult here than in a normal established slalom course.”
On a natural river it is hard to build a fair course, and when it rains even that stops meaning anything. The reason he has been talking about a permanent venue for 20 years played out in front of everyone on the afternoon of day three.
🧭 Policy · Outlook
While we wait for Ulsan — where you can learn now
Korea’s first international-standard slalom venue is still at the planning stage · until then, the way into slalom is whitewater kayaking
Twenty years of persuasion have taken shape in Ulsan. On September 11, 2024, the city of Ulsan and the Ulsan Sports Council signed an agreement to promote canoeing with the International Canoe Federation, the Asian Canoe Confederation and the Korea Canoe Federation. It was Prono’s last year as ICF slalom chair.
Ulsan’s slalom venue is still at the planning stage; design work has not yet begun. Its size and budget, when it might open, and what it takes for a whitewater venue to survive once the races are over are the subject of Part 3.
Until the Ulsan venue opens, though, nothing has changed. Asked where members of the public should go to learn slalom, head coach Kim Hyun-su answered:
Kim Hyun-su “Honestly, I can’t recommend a place in Korea to do slalom. I’d suggest starting with whitewater kayaking. Abroad, Prague in the Czech Republic. There’s a slalom course in a spot like the Han River would be for Seoul. It’s built at a dam, so there’s no switching the water on and off, which should make it easy to get to.”
Head coach Kim Hyun-su
As the coach says, the way into slalom is whitewater kayaking — and that you can learn in Korea. GO PADDLE has listed only places confirmed to be operating as of September 2026.
🛶 Where to learn whitewater kayaking in Korea
Schools
Songgang Canoe School Naerincheon, Inje, Gangwon
A canoe and kayak school opened in 1986. Step-by-step (star) whitewater kayak courses, roll and brace clinics.
WebsiteInstagramFacebookPhone+82-33-461-1659
Jirisan Kayak School Shop in Daegu, sessions around Jirisan
From beginner tours to whitewater safety and rescue courses. The website is not regularly updated, so contact them by phone or social media first.
InstagramNaver BandWebsitePhone+82-10-8596-1588
Paddle with others
We picked only cafés that cover whitewater and are still active in 2026. Most kayak cafés with thousands of members focus on sea, lake or fishing. (Member counts as of early October.)
Yeoul Kayak Club Naerincheon · club
A club devoted to whitewater kayaking. Since opening its café in 2007, its 400-odd members have run regular and pop-up Naerincheon trips, logging water levels.
Naver café
Duckie (Kayak) Riders Donggang, Namhangang · club
With about 8,600 members, the largest river-kayak café. Members paddle inflatable kayaks (duckies), starting with easier rapids such as the Donggang.
Naver café
Korea Whitewater Express Naerincheon · race
A whitewater kayak race run by club paddlers. The third edition, in June 2026, had four events. Race notices and entries are handled on the café.
Naver café
Kayak Magazine Daum café · info
An information café for whitewater gear reviews and race and course notices, shared among about 1,200 members.
Daum café
We have not yet found anywhere that hangs slalom gates for the public to try. When the Ulsan venue opens, it will be the first permanent way in. Details can change, so check each channel before you go.
At the end of the interview, we asked Prono if there was anything he wanted to say. He answered:
“And just last words, I would really wish success for Korea, Korean slalom team, slalom development, and as long as I could, I will support (…) a new era for slalom in Korea. Thank you.”
Inje, September 17, 2025 (original English)
🎯 Takeaways for instructors and businesses
Kim Min-gyu Your SUP taster session can make an athlete.
Kim Min-gyu (ninth grade, Yanghak Middle School), who told us in Part 1 that “paddling in fast water is really fun,” had been paddling for a year and seven months, and in that time won silver at the National Youth Sports Festival. This is how he started: “I first rode a SUP, and the instructor there asked if I wanted to try kayaking, so I started.” It began with a marine experience program he happened to join. All you need is a map of the next step to offer after the taster.
✍️ Editor's note — opening the path from taster to athlete
Many children meet the water for the first time at SUP taster sessions, yet there is still no path that carries the ones who read water well into a canoe or kayak team. What if there were a meeting point between taster instructors and elite teams, open training days where coaches visit taster sites, and a system linking instructor training with talent referral? SUP is the lowest threshold into the water and a stepping stone that widens the athlete base. We hope elite coaches and sport federations will open the door first.
📌 Coming next
Part 3 · Tue, Oct 13
Ulsan’s whitewater venue: will it become London or Beijing?
From Augsburg to Kasai and on to Ulsan: how whitewater venues grow a sport, and how they survive.
GO PADDLE Slalom Series
◀ Part 1Part 3 · Oct 13 ▶
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Sources · ICF: Jean-Michel Prono profile · Prono’s CV as ICF slalom chair candidate (2021) · ICF: departing Prono reflects on 20 years · ICF: 100-year honorary members · ICF: Augsburg Eiskanal · Financial News (2024.9.11) Ulsan–ICF agreement · ICF: key dates in kayak cross history · ICF: slalom cross explained (2016) · ICF: Secretary General Simon Toulson announces departure · Eric Jackson, “Extreme Slalom” (Paddler eZine) · Money Today (2026.1.19) 2025 National Sports Participation Survey · 2016 Canoe Slalom World Cup (Ivrea) · ICF (2017.10.1) first extreme slalom world champions · ICF (2020.12.7) IOC approves Paris 2024 plan · Canoeing at the 2024 Olympics · Kuki News (2025.6.17) Naerincheon rafting
Primary sources · Korea Canoe Federation, 2025 Canoe Slalom Training Camp & Seminar guidelines (2025.9.5) · Jean-Michel Prono, seminar slides “Inje, CSL seminar Presentation” (2025.9)
GO PADDLE collects news on canoeing, kayaking, SUP, surfing and wing foiling for instructors and paddlesport businesses in Korea.
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All interviews, field notes, photos and video in this article were reported and filmed by GO PADDLE.
GO PADDLE newsletter · Korean original sent 2026.10.6
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