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More than 200 boats from 13 countries have entered the 2024 ECA Ocean Racing European Championships, taking place in Terceira Island, Azores. There will be four official European Championships events - senior men's and women's SS1 race, as well as U23 men's and women's race. Altogether there will be 23 events held on Saturday, however the other events are not European Championships events as there are not enough participating nations entered to the event according to the competition rules.

 

Due to the weather conditions the organisers had to adapt the competition programme, so all races will be held on Saturday. "We had to decide whether we are going to risk to have a flatwater race. We had a three days window, at the end it turned out to be a one day window. The first day was very calm, flat, the second was perfect with all conditions, and the third was just too dangerous to do anything on the water. In turned out we have to have all races in one day, which is Saturday. Other reasons are we wanted to give every category a chance to have a really good downwind race. We had to put those categories together, it is going to be a one big, fun and really good race," said Roberto Liberato, the ECA Ocean Racing technical delegate for whom this is the first European Championships in this role.

 

The athletes will step onto the stage at 11:00 local time (13:00 CET), when women's senior and U23 as well as women's junior and masters races will start. Also at 11:00 it will be a start for men's master events and OC events. Ten minutes later the men's senior, U23 and junior SS1 races will begin, alongside the SS2 events.

 

"The course is about 25 kilometres long. We start at the East coast of the island, and make almost 90 degrees around the island, so we have the best downwind conditions. Those parts could be potentially dangerous for the athletes. We have the buoys and the athletes are instructed where to pass the buoys. We have 15 security boats which have the duty to tell and make signals, so the athletes don't go there. It is not really dangerous, it is just potentially dangerous. If something stupid happens, like someone loses the paddle or the rudder, then it can be dangerous for the athlete because he's out in the ocean, in the Atlantic, but also for the rescue team. You don't want to go there where all the rocks are and this is why we set those buoys," added Liberato.

 

The competition will be streamed live on the Canoe Europe Youtube channel, starting one hour before the first start of the race (10:00 local time, 12:00 CET).