ECA JUNIOR&U23 CANOE SLALOM & FREESTYLE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS

Tickets with best prices are available in online pre-sales.

ECA JUNIOR & U23 CANOE SLALOM EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS 2018

ECA Junior & U23 Canoe Slalom European Championships 2018 is returning after 16 years again into the capital city of Bratislava. The top youth international competition will be held again in the Areal of Watersports (Divoka Voda) – Cunovo, in the second half of August.
You can see the best of canoe athletes from more than 35 European countries and over 400 competitors participating in the delta of Bratislava Danube.
This championships with the accompanying activities belongs to the most important cultural events of the year 2018 in Slovakia.

The most successful Slovak sport thanks to our athletes

“Just to stay relaxed and dont make any mistakes, I told myself before the start. There was only one chance for us. The presure was extremely high, but fortunately it worked out so perfectly. I was watching the brothers Hochschorner when they won at the Olympic games and believed, that gave us the power we needed” said Peter Skantar (the cousin of his team mate Ladislav ), the new winner of men´s doble canoe in Rio de Janeiro 2016. When the Brazilian Olympic games closed successfully the season, after that our Olympians have qualified and hoping their´s dreams come true in Tokyo 2020.
In 2017 with the motto – Journey to Tokyo starts in Čunovo – ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships Junior&23 taken part in the Areal Divoka voda. The young Slovakian athletes won seven medals, three of them were winners of single canoe. In total overal, Slovakia came in third place, but the most successful was the single category.
As we can see, the popularity of waterslalom has rised. By our successful competitors, accomplished canoeing became the most prosperous Olympic sport in Slovakia. So far we won 14 medals and we are ready to achieve greater results also this year.
Freestyle kayaking is a young, dynamic, adrenaline sport. As a sport discipline, it is part of the International Canoe Federation (ICF) and ECA (European Canoe Association), and it belongs to wild water canoeing disciplines. The competition is based on official rules, where the figures are also defined and their score is scored. The essence of the sporting performance is to get the maximum points for the completed figures in the water roll / waves in 45 seconds. This year, Slovak Canoeing has a unique opportunity to host the European Championships in this extraordinary audience-sporting discipline, which has its rules full of dynamics, adrenaline, and action.
That´s the reason why we made the strategic decision and thanks to positive feedback from the International Canoe Federation (ICF), we will be organising more sport events in Cunovo for the next few years:
2018 – ECA Junior&23 Canoe Slalom European Championships
2018 – ECA Freestyle European Championships
2019 – The second round of the World cup
2020 – The Final of the World cup
2021 – The World Championships
The Organisatial commitee would like to continue to arrange another water events in Danube. Lead by example of World Championships 2011, which was the qualification for the Olympic games in London 2012 – that time evaluated by ICF as the the best organised canoe event in history.
Slovak canoeing is very grateful of the opportunity given to it by the International Canoe Federation by the attribution of the events mentioned above, enabling it to strategically plan and improve the quality of the events. Our goal is to move forward year after year and ten years after the successful World Championship, confirm the status of the elite organizer and allow Slovak athletes to perform top performances in front of home fans.
We believe that together with you we can prepare excellent conditions for our athletes so that we can jointly say that we have participated in the titles of world champions, European champions, World Cup winners or gold medalists.