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GO PADDLE No. 30 · SLALOM SERIES · PART 3
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
 
A kayak runs down an artificial whitewater course lined with blue walls, with spectators and staff gathered on the banks
The Paris 2024 Olympic slalom venue (Vaires-sur-Marne) · 2024.8.3 · Photo AlSepPhoenix · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY 4.0
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Hi from GO PADDLE 👋 Here it is — the final part of our slalom series 🛶 In Part 1 we met canoeing on whitewater; in Part 2, the man who led canoe slalom at the International Canoe Federation for 20 years. Today we follow the channels where the sport grows: whitewater venues 🌊
 
In September 2025, Ulsan announced plans to build Korea’s first international-standard canoe slalom venue in Ulsan Sports Park. A year later, on September 4, 2026, the Korean National Canoe Championships opened on the Taehwa River in Ulsan. Before the opening ceremony, Ulsan mayor Kim Sang-wook sat down with officials from the Korea Canoe Federation and the Asian Canoe Confederation, and in a meeting streamed live on his YouTube channel, he raised the canoe slalom venue before he even gave his welcome.
“When we decide whether to go ahead with that 58-billion-won project, the key question is how actively the people of Ulsan will actually use it once it’s completed.”
Kim Sang-wook, mayor of Ulsan · 2026.9.4, Taehwa River · video (Korean)
He was neither saying “build it” nor “drop it.” What the mayor asked was whether the venue could be run sustainably once it is built. And it is the very same question that decided whether Olympic whitewater venues were still alive decades later, or had run dry.
The final part of the series takes that question on a tour of the world’s whitewater venues. Along the way we will revisit the question left open in Part 1 — why Korea and Japan, who set out from the same river in 2005, went different ways — with the venue as our clue. 🛶
🏛 History · Venues
Slalom’s first Olympic stage was a man-made channel
The 1972 Munich Olympics · the Eiskanal, the world’s first artificial whitewater course
The Eiskanal (“ice channel”) in Augsburg, Germany, was not built as a venue. It was dug in 1878–79 to flush ice away from a waterworks that carried water from the River Lech into the city. In 1946 wooden obstacles were placed in the channel to create rapids, and the following year it hosted its first slalom race.
When slalom became an Olympic event for the first time at the 1972 Munich (München) Games, the races were held in this channel. The sloped stands around the channel were built for 24,000, yet some 30,000 came — 6,000 more than there was room for, a sign of how much interest the new event drew. The Eiskanal went on to become the model for later Olympic venues such as Barcelona, Sydney and London, and more than 50 training and competition sites in 18 countries were built with it as a reference. In 2019 Augsburg’s historic water management system — 22 sites including old canals, water towers, hydropower stations and fountains, the Eiskanal among them — became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in 2022 the World Championships returned to the course that had hosted the Olympics half a century earlier.
Black-and-white photo: a round artificial obstacle sits in the middle of a concrete channel, with a railed walkway running along the right
The Eiskanal in autumn 1972, after the Olympics · Photo Eckhard Henkel · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
In the last-evening interview in Inje that we covered in Part 2, Jean-Michel Prono was asked where slalom stands within canoeing, and he answered step by step, starting from its origins. This is the conclusion he reached:
Jean-Michel Prono “Now I have to say that we are very new in the Olympic movement. Inside the ICF canoe disciplines, sprint was always, for a long time, at the top. But slowly, slowly slalom is making its road in the Olympic history, in the ICF (…) and we fight, we develop (…) to stay Olympic, because it’s crucial for the advertising and the promotion of canoeing in general.”
Jean-Michel Prono · former ICF Slalom Committee chair · Inje, 2025.9.17 (original English)
For slalom to stay in the Olympics, it needs, above all, venues to race on. But whether a venue survives is another question. The whitewater venues built around the world after the Eiskanal had their futures decided by whether people kept using them once the Games were over.
🌍 Abroad 1
London opened its doors to the public before the Olympics
Lee Valley White Water Centre · national team training base and public rafting centre in one
The Lee Valley White Water Centre in north London opened in December 2010, a year and eight months before the Games. It was the first new London 2012 venue to be completed, and the only new venue to open to the public before the Games. It cost £31 million (about 55 billion won at the time), and in the summer of 2012, 55,000 people watched slalom there over five days.
A kayaker comes down the whitewater course in front of packed stands, with London 2012 lettering below the seats
Lee Valley on a London 2012 Olympic slalom day · 2012.8.2 · Photo Mark Percy · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY-SA 2.0
What really matters is what happened after the Games. Lee Valley reopened to the public just six weeks after the closing ceremony, and some 290,000 people visited in the year or so that followed. More than £6 million (about 10 billion won) was then spent building an elite training centre and new parking. Today it is the training base of Britain’s canoe slalom team and a public leisure venue running rafting at least five days a week; rafting is also its most popular activity. It hosted the World Championships in 2015 and 2023.
A raft of people in helmets paddling on blue water, with the Lee Valley White Water Centre building behind
Public rafting at the Lee Valley White Water Centre · 2016.6 · Photo sludgegulper · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY-SA 2.0
The secret is in the design. Lee Valley has two courses: the 300 m Olympic Course, where the Games were raced, and beside it the 160 m Legacy Loop, built separately for beginners. While athletes train on the Olympic Course, people new to whitewater take their first steps on the Legacy Loop. On the warm-up and cool-down lake where the water from both courses collects, SUP and kayak tasters and an inflatable obstacle course let families get on the water together from age 8, and swimmers use the pool-standard, chlorinated water for year-round open water swimming on a 250 m triangular loop. The Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, which runs the venue, says this commercial activity makes the venue “economically sustainable.”
Colourful kayaks stacked on racks in the boat store on the ground floor of a timber-clad building
Kayaks filling Lee Valley’s boat store · 2015.6 · Photo Christine Matthews · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY-SA 2.0
Overhead map of Lee Valley with labels on the large winding Olympic course on the left, the small Legacy Loop at lower right, and the lower pond both channels drain into
Lee Valley’s two courses — a separate beginners’ Legacy Loop runs beside the Olympic course · Map HowardMorland (labels added by GO PADDLE) · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY-SA 3.0
🌍 Abroad 2
Beijing’s channel was found dry just over ten years on
Athens 2004 · Beijing 2008 · Rio 2016 — venues built for the Games
The slalom course at Beijing’s Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park was completed in July 2007, a year before the Olympics, and held its first competition that August. Just over ten years later, in December 2018, when the English-language outlet The Beijinger went to see it, the channel had run dry. The article said the site had been “mostly left to ruin” after its Olympic glory, with broken boats strewn beside a stalled conveyor belt. The park’s rowing and sprint canoe course survived as a national sports training base; the slalom channel did not.
🚣 What kept the Shunyi park alive — year-round facilities and programmes
What kept the park going was not relying on a single venue. China’s first professional rowing club is based on the rowing course and runs lessons for the public, corporate team events and domestic and international races. In June 2018 the park opened a 4,000 m² indoor ice arena, ‘Ice World’ (冰世界). With an international-standard ice hockey rink and a leisure rink, it runs skating, figure-skating and ice hockey classes and school programmes, and can take 100,000 visits a year — so the park keeps going even in winter, when the water programmes rest.
Why the slalom channel stopped has never been officially explained. But the facilities that kept running in the same park have one thing in common: year-round programmes that draw people in, and an operator to run them.
Beijing was not alone. In 2014, ten years after the Games, the Athens 2004 slalom venue stood drained and abandoned (BBC).
Aerial view of a venue: below terraced stands, a winding channel lies exposed without water
The drained Athens 2004 slalom venue (Hellinikon) · Photo Arne Müseler / arne-mueseler.com · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Rio 2016’s Deodoro venue closed that December when no operator could be found, and when it reopened about nine months later, only the pool was open, with the whitewater system not in operation.
🏊 Deodoro returns as a public sports facility
Aerial view of the Deodoro venue, with its winding whitewater course, a large basin and stands
The Deodoro slalom venue before the Games · 2015.12 · Photo André Motta/Brasil2016.gov.br · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY-SA 3.0 BR
The Deodoro venue was built as part of an ‘X-Park’ with BMX and mountain-bike facilities, and after the Games it was used as a public swimming pool.
People swimming in a large basin on a sunny day, with parasols along the edge
The Deodoro venue’s swimming area, opened to the public for the summer ahead of the Games · 2015.12.23 · Photo Tomaz Silva/Agência Brasil · Wikimedia Commons original · CC BY 3.0 BR
Since reopening, it has served residents as a public sports facility. Now called Parque Radical de Deodoro, the park has opened its pool at weekends since December 2021 and runs some 30 free exercise classes; 6,281 people visited in May 2024 alone, and the city says it has become a leisure and sports space for residents of the West Zone. The Olympic slalom channel is now used as a training venue by Brazil’s national team.
The three venues in Beijing, Athens and Rio have one clear thing in common. All were built to meet the date of the Games, but plans for who would operate them and how to keep them in regular use afterwards were not strong enough to keep them going. That is also why Mayor Kim asked first not whether to build, but how much the public would use it once built.
🌍 Abroad 3
Oklahoma City, USA: a venue the public used first
A public whitewater park about 1,900 km from LA becomes the LA 2028 slalom venue
Unlike London and Beijing, which were built for the Olympics, one venue was built for the public and only later became an Olympic venue: Riversport Rapids, the artificial whitewater course in Oklahoma City that we introduced in Part 1 as the LA 2028 slalom venue. Its story begins with a river. The seven-mile stretch of the North Canadian River through downtown Oklahoma City was for years a dry riverbed, its water diverted to keep downtown from flooding. In 1993 residents voted to pay a one-cent sales tax, and the city used it to build dams and fill the river with water. Renamed the Oklahoma River in 2004, its banks filled up with rowing boathouses, and in 2008 the US national rowing team’s training centre arrived too.
The whitewater course was the next step. In 2009, as the mayor and city council drew up the next list of projects, they asked the public for ideas and held a series of public meetings. Alongside a downtown park, a streetcar and trails, upgrades to the Oklahoma River made the list — including a whitewater facility for rafting, kayaking and canoeing for every skill level, from beginner to expert. In December 2009 residents approved it by a narrow 54 to 46. Nothing was borrowed: projects were built only as fast as the tax came in.
Riversport Rapids opened in May 2016. Its $45.2 million cost (about 52 billion won at the time) was paid entirely from that sales tax. When it was built, there was no Olympic plan at all. It was planned as a public facility running rafting, kayaking and tubing, plus lessons, leagues and camps, and a non-profit foundation runs it. The team behind Lee Valley designed it.
Against the Oklahoma City skyline, people in helmets paddle a raft through brown rapids in a concrete channel
Riversport Rapids, right next to downtown · 2016.10 · Photo Allison Meier · Flickr original · CC BY-SA 2.0
Because residents paid for it, they get a clear share back. In the summer season the grounds are open free of charge, so anyone can come and watch the rafters and kayakers. With donations, the foundation has taught rowing free of charge to more than 2,500 students from underserved communities through a school league, and since 2019, 9,201 young people have taken part in its outdoor programmes; in 2023 alone it gave 912 field-trip and 502 summer-camp scholarships. It also runs dedicated programmes for military veterans, people with disabilities and first responders.
People in a blue raft come down the rapids, with blue obstacles and gate poles along both sides of the channel
Public rafting at Riversport Rapids · 2016.10 · Photo Allison Meier · Flickr original · CC BY-SA 2.0
A facility that residents paid for and had been using was selected, just as it was, as an Olympic venue. The Ulsan mayor’s request — that clubs should first spring up in companies and schools — follows the same order.
📊 At a glance
After the Games, what happened to the venues?
VenueOpenedProgrammesLatest
Augsburg
Germany · Munich 1972		 1972 (rebuilt as the Olympic venue) Local canoe club courses and training, public rafting, national-team training 2022 World Championships
Troja
Czech Republic · Prague		 1980 Public rafting, kayak taster rides and courses, water-rescue courses, national-team training 2026 World Cup
La Seu d’Urgell
Spain · Barcelona 1992		 before 1992 Public rafting, hydrospeed, kayaking 2019 World Championships
Čunovo
Slovakia · Bratislava		 1996 Rafting, kayaking, surfing; kayak and surf schools 2021 World Championships
Penrith
Australia · Sydney 2000		 1999 Public rafting, lessons, school programmes, whitewater rescue training 2025 World Championships
Hellinikon
Greece · Athens 2004		 2004 — Drained and abandoned in 2014
Markkleeberg
Germany · Leipzig		 2007 Rafting, kayak school, surf courses, clubs 2021 World Cup Final
Beijing Shunyi
China · Beijing 2008		 2007 — Channel dry in 2018
Pau
France		 2009 Rafting, kayaking, hydrospeed; French national-team training 2017 World Championships
Lee Valley
UK · London 2012		 2010 National-team training, public rafting (5+ days a week) 2023 World Championships
Vienna Watersports Arena
Austria · Vienna		 2013 Rafting, kayak courses, surfing, national-team and club training 2014 European Championships
Deodoro
Brazil · Rio 2016		 2015 Public swimming pool, Brazil national-team training 2018 World Championships
Wero Whitewater Park
New Zealand · Auckland		 2016 Public rafting, kayaking, SUP, water-safety courses, national-team training 2023 Oceania Championships
Oklahoma City
USA · LA 2028		 2016 Public rafting, kayaking, tubing; lessons, leagues, camps 2028 Olympic slalom (planned)
Vaires-sur-Marne
France · Paris 2024		 2019 Public rafting, hydrospeed, kayaking; training 2025 European Championships
Kasai
Japan · Tokyo 2020		 2019 Public rafting and canoe classes 2023 Asian Championships
Venues in order of opening year. Operations as described on each venue’s or operator’s website, ICF and local tourism sources. Tap a venue name to open its official site (Deodoro links to Rio City Hall’s news page; Beijing Shunyi and Hellinikon have no active official channel). Venues not built for an Olympics show location only.
🧭 Policy · Outlook
The Ulsan venue and the mayor’s two conditions
Background Ulsan canoe slalom venue plan (announced September 2025)
Site 34,000 m² inside Ulsan Sports Park, Nam-gu, Ulsan
Course 260 m long · 15 m wide (meets the international standard of 150–400 m and 18–25 gates)
Seating up to 15,000 planned
Budget 58 billion won in total (half national, half local funding)
Schedule 2026 design → 2027 construction → 2028 completion (original 2025 plan, under Mayor Kim Doo-gyeom)
Also planned rafting, a water-rescue training centre, an ice rink, an outdoor pool and an indoor canoe training pool
Lodging & transport a youth hostel (due 2027) to house visiting teams · Ulsan–Yangsan–Busan regional rail and an urban tram line planned
Reference model Kasai, Tokyo
Side effect Asian Canoe Confederation headquarters to move to Ulsan (confirmed September 2025)
Ulsan Maeil (2025.9.2) · Seoul Shinmun (2025.9.2) · Ulsan MBC (2025.9.2)
🛶 The Ulsan venue so far
2024.9
Ulsan · agreement
Canoeing agreement: Ulsan, the ICF, the Asian Canoe Confederation and the Korea Canoe Federation
2025.9
Ulsan · plan announced
International-standard slalom venue announced — 58 billion won in total
2025.12
National budget
200 million won in the 2026 budget (29 billion won needed)
2026.6
Ulsan · local elections
New mayor-elect says the project needs review
2026.9
Taehwa River, Ulsan · National Championships
The mayor’s two conditions — national funding, and running costs
2026.9
GO PADDLE check
Design not yet started
Original plan
Schedule set under the previous mayor (announced 2025.9)
2026 design → 2027 construction → 2028 completion
The hurdle to clear first is national funding. The venue needs 29 billion won in national funding, but the 2026 national budget included just 200 million won. The June 2026 local elections replaced Kim Doo-gyeom, the mayor who drew up the plan, with Kim Sang-wook. As mayor-elect, he cited the total cost and how the venue would be run and maintained once finished, and said the project needed to be reviewed.
Three months later on the Taehwa River, the mayor’s answer was two conditions.
“The city can’t take on a project that puts its finances at risk. Even if we build it, it must be a facility that brings in national funding, and second, the upkeep burden after it’s built has to be small.”

“The point is, this isn’t Ulsan’s project — it’s the nation’s project.”

“It won’t work as a market of 1.09 million; we have to make it a market of 8.5 million.”
Kim Sang-wook, mayor of Ulsan · 2026.9.4 · “8.5 million” as spoken · the registered population of Busan, Ulsan and Gyeongnam is about 7.56 million (June 2025, Statistics Korea)
To win national funding, the venue has to be one the country needs, not just Ulsan — and there are good reasons it is.
🏟 Four reasons Ulsan needs a slalom venue
Reasons to invest national funds — a venue for all of Korean canoeing, not just Ulsan
A national training base athletes would no longer have to go abroad for whitewater
Korean slalom athletes currently go abroad in search of whitewater, and even the national selection trials are held on a canal with almost no current. Korea’s only international-standard venue would become the base where the national team trains and is selected at home.
This is also the case for national funding: the Ulsan venue would serve not just Ulsan’s citizens but Korean canoeing as a whole.
International events and an Asian hub the Asian Canoe Confederation’s headquarters moving to Ulsan
Lee Valley hosted the World Championships in 2015 and 2023, the Eiskanal in 2022. Ulsan has confirmed the Asian Canoe Confederation’s move to the city, and a youth hostel to house visiting teams is being built. A venue would lay the groundwork for hosting international events and overseas training camps.
Demand for rescue training the era of the national water-rescuer licence
With the water-rescue training centre in Ulsan’s plan alongside a whitewater course, the venue would become a rare place to practise whitewater rescue.
Ulsan, Korea’s canoe capital like Oklahoma, whose public rapids became an Olympic venue
Oklahoma City’s public whitewater centre was chosen as the LA 2028 Olympic slalom venue nine years after it opened. If Ulsan, which hosts the National Canoe Championships on the Taehwa River, adds Korea’s first international-standard whitewater venue, it could become the centre of Korean canoeing.
National funding is for the government and the National Assembly to decide. The second condition — whether the upkeep can be carried once it is built — is also the test that separated London from Beijing. The answer comes down to whether citizens keep coming back to paddle it, and the people to fill that part are the citizens of Ulsan and the paddlers of Busan, Ulsan and Gyeongnam.
On running costs, Ulsan starts from a strong position. Ulsan Sports Park, where the venue will be built, has a lake, and according to a city official, Ulsan is considering drawing water from this lake instead of using mains water for the venue. Not relying on tap water means a lighter water bill.
Drawing on nearby water is something long-lived venues have in common. The Eiskanal takes water from a weir on the River Lech, while Slovakia’s Čunovo runs on water from a dam on the Danube, and Lee Valley on groundwater.
A lake does more than supply water. As at Lee Valley, a calm lake beside the venue could be where first-timers get comfortable on the water.
As Part 1 reported, when GO PADDLE checked at the end of September, design work had not yet begun. Set the conditions of long-lived venues abroad against Ulsan’s plan now, and they look like this.
🌊 Five conditions for whitewater to thrive as whitewater
What successful venues have in common — and what Ulsan’s plan already includes
① The rapids become public leisure Ulsan plan: rafting in the announced plan — to be settled in design
Lee Valley and Oklahoma both run rafting as a paid programme. Oklahoma was built for about 2,000 rafters a day. Whitewater can cover its own running costs when it becomes paid leisure the public comes to enjoy.
② There is a door for beginners Ulsan plan: design not begun — can still be added
Lee Valley has a separate 160 m Legacy Loop beside its 300 m Olympic Course, so it can take people new to whitewater. Ulsan’s current plan has only the 260 m competition channel; a beginners’ course is the most important thing that can still be added at the design stage.
③ There is an operator from the start Ulsan plan: design not begun — can still be decided
Oklahoma’s venue has been run since opening by a non-profit foundation, Lee Valley’s by the regional park authority. Rio’s venue closed after the Games because no operator could be found. Deciding the operator and programmes together with the design is a basic condition for keeping the rapids running.
④ There are people to handle the rapids Ulsan plan: water-rescue training centre in the announced plan — to be settled in design
A whitewater facility can open only with a rafting guide on every raft and qualified lifeguards on the bank. Penrith is also used for whitewater rescue training, so its course keeps running on days without competitions.
⑤ There are facilities that run in every season Ulsan plan: ice rink and outdoor pool in the announced plan — to be settled in design
Summer is whitewater’s high season. Shunyi built an indoor ice arena in the park, separate from the whitewater course, and drew people in all year with skating and ice hockey classes (capacity of 100,000 visits a year). The ice rink and outdoor pool in Ulsan’s plan are likewise separate facilities, keeping people coming to the venue grounds even in winter, rafting’s off-season.
Three of the five — rafting, the water-rescue training centre, and the ice rink and outdoor pool — are already in the plan Ulsan announced in 2025. A beginners’ course and an operator can be settled together at the design stage.
Now back to the question left open in Part 1. No single reason explains why Korea and Japan, who set out together on the Naerincheon in Inje in 2005, went different ways, but the most visible difference was a venue. Part 1 looked at how Japan’s results changed after the Kasai venue opened, but results were not the only thing that changed. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government (東京都), which owns the venue, opened it to the public in July 2022, the year after the Games (held in 2021), and today a private operator runs rafting and canoe classes there. The Tokyo government’s own news site says rafting is especially popular with families. Families launching boats at the weekend on the water where athletes train — it is no different from London. Penrith in Australia, where Japan won its first World Championship medal, is likewise a venue that survived as a public rafting centre after hosting the Olympics 25 years ago.
Japan built a venue and has kept it running ever since the Games ended. Korea has yet to build either the venue or a system to run one. The Ulsan venue is the first chance to build both at once.
Ulsan also has the conditions to support a venue. Ulsan Sports Park, where the venue will be built, already has football, baseball and tennis facilities, so parking and other infrastructure can be shared, and once the regional rail line and urban tram open, the venue will be easy to reach from anywhere in Busan, Ulsan and Gyeongnam.
🎙 Interview · Careers
The people a venue brings with it
Officials, medical staff — a venue calls for more than athletes
Kim Young-mi, who coaches middle- and high-school athletes in Pohang, is also an international official in both canoe sprint and slalom. Asked whether slalom needs course designers and many officials, she listed the seats at the officials’ table one by one.
Kim Young-mi “In football it’s almost all referees. But we have umpire positions, official positions, judge positions, and guide positions too — we even use the word ‘staff.’”
Kim Young-mi · international official, canoe sprint and slalom
Medical staff are needed at the water’s edge too. Hwang Mun-hyeon, the national team’s athletic trainer who joined the camp, said that because the sport trains on moving water, there is a risk more common than injury.
Hwang Mun-hyeon “Because they race and train on flowing water (…) they swallow contaminated water, or it gets into the body, and the rate of illness-related problems like infections turned out to be much higher.”
Hwang Mun-hyeon · athletic trainer, Korea national canoe team
🦠 The moment you swallow the water — infections at outdoor events
Brazil · 2015 · A Korean national windsurfer in hospital
At the Olympic sailing test event in Guanabara Bay a year before the Rio Games, Korean national-team windsurfer Cho Won-woo was taken to hospital with dehydration, vomiting, headache and dizziness. The exact cause was never established, but his coach blamed the water. An AP analysis published just before the event had found dangerously high levels of viruses from human sewage at all of Rio’s Olympic water venues. ESPN (2015.8.20)
Costa Rica · 1996 · Rafting a swollen river
Of 26 people who rafted a flood-swollen river, nine developed fever, headache and muscle pain, and two were hospitalised. A CDC investigation traced the illness to leptospirosis from contaminated river water. All nine patients had swallowed river water and been submerged after falling in. CDC MMWR (1997)
USA · 1998 · A triathlon swum in a lake
After a triathlon whose swim leg was held in a lake in Springfield, Illinois, 90 of the 871 athletes reported fever, headache, muscle pain and similar symptoms, and 23 were hospitalised. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed leptospirosis, and an advisory against swimming in the lake followed. CDC MMWR (1998)
All three cases happened in natural waters where water quality cannot be managed. A permanent venue is different. Lee Valley disinfects its warm-up and cool-down lake to swimming-pool standard and runs open-water swimming all year round. If Ulsan’s venue, which will draw lake water, builds in water-quality management and disinfection at the design stage, it can be a safer place to get into the water than a natural river.
That is why a venue needs medical staff to look after athletes and visitors, and people to manage its water quality. Unlike a natural river used only on race days, a permanent venue gives them a place to work all year round.
Kim Young-mi compared the many roles that grow from this to a single tree.
Kim Young-mi “If there’s a big tree and you think of this branch as the athletes, there are many other branches over here — inside the tree called sport. (…) I think a coach is someone who widens the choices.”
Kim Young-mi · canoe coach, Pohang
On natural rivers these branches rarely get the chance to grow: rain stops the races, and when the water drops, the course disappears. Only a permanent venue creates steady jobs for officials, medical staff and instructors.
🎯 What instructors and businesses can prepare now
News of the Ulsan venue is information for instructors and businesses.
A public programme timetable the first thing the venue needs when it opens
The venues that survive are the ones the public keeps coming back to use. What the Ulsan venue needs first is a public programme timetable — and the people who fill it will be instructors and businesses.
If the opening year slips, that is extra time to prepare.
Clubs in Busan, Ulsan and Gyeongnam where the “market of 8.5 million” starts
If you run a SUP or kayak club or lessons, suggest whitewater kayaking as the next step to members who are at home on calm water. They will be the ones who fill the Ulsan venue when it opens.
The mayor’s “market of 8.5 million” means the paddlers of Busan, Ulsan and Gyeongnam. The basics of whitewater kayaking can be learned at the schools and clubs we introduced in Part 2.
🛟 Qualifications a whitewater venue needs
A whitewater facility can only open with qualified safety staff. People need to be ready before the venue is.
Water rescuer (lifeguard) national licence · safety staff
Since December 2025, lifeguards must hold the new national “water rescuer” licence. Holders of the old private certificates can switch through a special transitional exam until 20 December 2028.
Ulsan’s announced plan also includes a water-rescue training centre. If the venue opens after the special route ends, those who switch now will be its lifeguards on opening day.
Rafting guide at least one on every raft
Every raft in commercial operation must carry at least one rafting guide. The qualification is earned through a 40-hour course at a training body designated by the Korea Coast Guard.
The course covers whitewater swimming and rescue, raft handling and first aid, and there are six designated bodies, including the Korea Rafting Association (Inje), the Korea Life Saving Association and the YMCA of Korea. Ulsan’s announced plan includes rafting, so once it opens it will need as many guides as it has rafts.
Young prospects raised on New Zealand whitewater
The 2025 Inje camp was also joined by brothers Yeonsu and Junsu Na, born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, where they learned slalom on local whitewater. The chocolate bar Prono used in Part 2 to show the 20 cm gate height was one the brothers had handed out to everyone.
Jean-Michel Prono holding a chocolate bar above his head to show the height of a gate
Prono showing the 20 cm gate height with one of the brothers’ chocolate bars · from Part 2
Their dream is clear. In a 2024 interview with YTN, the elder brother, Yeonsu, said:
“I was born in New Zealand, but I grew up hearing a lot about Korean culture and history from my parents. (…) I want to work hard for the future development of Korean canoe slalom. (…) My biggest ambition is to race for Korea at the 2028 LA Olympics.”
— Yeonsu Na · YTN “Global Korean” (2024.4.28, Korean)
Takuya Haneda (羽根田卓也) left for Slovakia because Japan had no venue, and head coach Kim Hyun-su, as Parts 1 and 2 told, was also an athlete who went abroad in search of water. The brothers came from the opposite direction. On athletes who train abroad, coach Kim says:
Kim Hyun-su “The fact that they live and train abroad is, I believe, a great help to Korean slalom as well.”
✍️ Editor’s note — the trials course and the international course
Having no whitewater venue is not only a training problem; it affects national team selection, too. The 2025 trials were first set for 18 September on the Naerincheon in Inje, but, as Part 2 told, the rain the day before swelled the river and they were called off. The two brothers, for unavoidable reasons, were unable to race in the rescheduled trials either. Those trials (Oct 30 – Nov 1) took place by Sicheon Bridge on the Gyeongin Ara Waterway in Incheon — gates hung over a canal with almost no current. In some years, as in 2018, a whitewater course was built by placing rocks in the Osipcheon River in Samcheok, but such a course cannot be set up every year.
On a calm canal, the power to paddle fast largely decides the times. International races, though, test the ability to read the flow of whitewater and use its force. In effect, the skills the trials pick out are not the skills that decide international races. That is why the experience of Yeonsu and Junsu Na, who grew up on whitewater, deserves attention.
Yeonsu and Junsu Na built their skills on whitewater abroad, and now they want to put that experience to work for Korean canoeing. We hope Korean canoeing opens the door for the two brothers to take part — and that a venue where they can train freely opens in Korea soon.
On the final day of the three-day lectures, Jean-Michel Prono said goodbye to the participants like this:
Jean-Michel Prono “It has been difficult for me because it’s a long sequence, but (…) it is a pleasure to try to promote the discipline I’ve been working for during (…) 55 years.”
Jean-Michel Prono · closing the day-3 lecture · Inje, 2025.9.17 (original English)
Venues grow a sport. Venues built only for the Games did not last; what sustained a venue after the Games was the public who kept coming back. Ulsan already has many of the conditions to become London: a lake beside the site, the big Busan–Ulsan–Gyeongnam market, the Asian Canoe Confederation’s headquarters, and athletes and instructors who have been waiting for whitewater. What remains is to design it as a public venue from the very start.
In a venue built that way, Korean canoeing would for the first time have whitewater to train on at home and share with the public. Ulsan can be the first city to make that happen.
📚 Read the whole slalom series
Part 1 · Canoeing’s Hidden Face · Sep 29
Part 2 · The Godfather of Slalom · Oct 6
Part 3 · Ulsan’s Whitewater Venue: Will It Become London or Beijing? · Oct 13
GO PADDLE Slalom Series
◀ Part 1◀ Part 2
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Sources · Kim Sang-wook TV (2026.9.4) National Canoe Championships opening · Ulsan Maeil (2025.9.2) Ulsan slalom venue confirmed — facilities, youth hostel, transport, Korean · Seoul Shinmun (2025.9.2) Ulsan canoe slalom venue · Ulsan MBC (2025.9.2) budget and national funding · Gukje News (2025.12.3) Ulsan 2026 national budget · Kyongsang Ilbo (2026.6.26) review mentioned · ICF: Augsburg Eiskanal · Lee Valley Regional Park Authority · UK Sport (2013.12.17) · Lee Valley White Water Centre · The Beijinger (2018.12.3) · Hellinikon Slalom Centre (citing BBC, 2014.8.7) · Around the Rings: Deodoro · Penrith Whitewater Stadium · Tokyo Metropolitan Government (2023.4.14) Kasai · Sports Destination Management (2016.4.25) Oklahoma City · Riversport Rapids · Beijing Municipal Government · Shunyi Olympic Water Park, Chinese · Baidu Baike · Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park · Sun Rowing Club · China.com.cn (2018.6.30) Shunyi park opens indoor ice arena, Chinese · Wikipedia · Deodoro Olympic Whitewater Stadium · Rio City Hall (2024.5.29) Parque Radical de Deodoro, Portuguese · Ulsan Facilities Management Corporation · Ulsan Sports Park, Korean · Korean Sport & Olympic Committee results · 2025 canoe slalom selection trials, Korean · Newsis (2018.5.17) Samcheok Osipcheon slalom course selection trials, Korean · Korea Coast Guard · rafting guide training bodies, Korean · Water Leisure Safety Act Enforcement Decree, Korean · Korea Life Saving Association Busan · rafting guide course, Korean · CDC MMWR (1997) Leptospirosis among white-water rafters, Costa Rica · CDC MMWR (1998) Leptospirosis among triathletes, Illinois · ESPN (2015.8.20) Korean windsurfer falls sick after Rio test event · Kyoei (2022.7.21) Canoe Slalom Centre public opening, Japanese · Wikipedia · Augsburg Eiskanal (water source, specs) · Wikipedia · List of artificial whitewater courses · Riversport · Oklahoma River history · Wikipedia · MAPS 3 · Riversport Foundation · mission and youth programmes · Riversport · impact (2019–2023) · ICF (2025.4.9) LA28 canoe events and quotas · YTN (2024.4.28) Korean-New Zealander brothers dreaming of racing for Korea · Korea Coast Guard: water rescuer licence information
Some Wikimedia Commons photos have been cropped.
Won conversions · annual average exchange rate for the year the money was spent (Bank of Korea) — 2010: £1 ≈ 1,787 won; 2013: £1 ≈ 1,713 won; 2016: $1 ≈ 1,160 won
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