Canoeing at the Summer Olympics

Canoeing at the Summer Olympics
IOC Code	CSL (Canoe Slalom) CSP (Canoe Sprint)
Governing body	ICF
Events	16 (men: 8; women: 8)
Summer Olympics
1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024 2028 Note: demonstration or exhibition sport years indicated in italics
Medalists men women

Canoeing has been featured as competition sports in the Summer Olympic Games since the 1936 Games in Berlin, and they were also demonstration sports at the 1924 Games in Paris.^[1] There are two disciplines of canoeing in Olympic competition: slalom and sprint.

Two styles of boats are used in this sport: canoes with 1 or 2 canoers and kayaks with 1, 2 or 4 kayakers. This leads to the name designation of each event. For example, "C-1" is a canoe singles event and "K-2" is a kayak doubles event. '"KX-1" denotes kayak cross. Races are usually 500 metres or 1000 metres long, although there were also 10 km events from 1936 to 1956. On 13 August 2009, it was announced by the International Canoe Federation that the men's 500 m events would be replaced at the 2012 Summer Olympics by 200 m events with one of them being K-1 200 m for the women. The other events for men at 200 m will be C-1, K-1, and K-2.^[2] This was confirmed at their 2009 Board of Directors meeting in Windsor, Berkshire, Great Britain on 5 December 2009.^[3] Kayak cross was introduced in the 2024 Summer Olympics.^[4]