Is there a Kayak with the brand name Olympic?

Question

I'm going to look at a kayak offered and was told it says Olympic on it , I can't find any info on these, I haven't heard of them either.

Answer 1

You may have heard the term"Olympic" kayak used in reference to the boats used in the Olympics.  One would be a whitewater slalom design and the other a long torpedo-looking sprint kayak.  the sprint kayaks do 500m and 1000m sprints in lanes similar to the track and field folks) on a lake or other flat body of water( In Greece, they had to build a lake as the country has no inland water bodies).  They run K-1, K-2 and K-4 in one or both of those distances(the number meaning how many  paddlers are in the boat).  and there are classes for male and female.   I believe they also have Canoe and tandem canoe for men, but those boats are extremely tippy and fast and look nothing like a normal canoe.

The whitewater slalom boats  also do canoe and kayak modes.  Women are still only allowed to compete in the kayak class, but that will change in 2009.  Guys can race K-1, or C-1 or C-2(2 person boat)  The whitewater boats are a maximum of 3.5m long(the C-2 is a little shorter than 15 feet) and are designed to turn much quicker than the sprint boats as the slalom paddlers negotiate  a series of poles(called gates) suspended over the river, be it an artifical man-made whitewater course or a natural riverbed.  A typical course will be 20 pairs of gates and a length of maybe 300 meters.  The courses have been shortened to cow-tow to the media over the years.

That may be TMI, but once I get going, I have a hard time stopping.  More info at www.usack.org ,  the national governing body for the US Olympic Team.  www.padlding.net also might be a resourse if a company does indeed manufacture under the name Olympic.