The Canoe Sprint competition kicks off at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games for Team Canada’s athletes this evening at (8:30 pm EDT), 9:30am JST. The action continues through until Saturday August 7. Canadians will race in twelve events at the Sea Forest Waterway with heats, quarterfinals and semifinals drawing out the best paddlers in the world for the Olympic finals.

London 2012 bronze medallist, Mark de Jonge lines up for his third Olympic start in the men’s K-4 with teammates Nicholas Matveev, Pierre-Luc Poulin and Simon McTavish. Mark will also race in the Men’s K1 200m event with Nicholas Matveev.

Women’s canoe will make its Olympic debut in Tokyo, making the sprint program gender equal, with both men and women competing in four kayak events and two canoe events. Katie Vincent and Laurence Vincent Lapointe will be lining up in C1 and C2 events beginning on Tuesday August 3^rd.

Andréanne Langlois returns for her second Olympic Games and will be racing in the Women’s K1 200m heats tomorrow along with Michelle Russell.  Both Langlois and Russell will also race K4 500m with teammates Alanna Bray-Lougheed, and Madeline Schmidt.   Alanna and Madeline will line up in the Women’s K2 500m.   Rounding out the Women’s Kayak events, Michelle Russell will also race the K1 500m.

Roland Varga and Connor Fitzpatrick will take on the C2 1000m event starting today and both will race C1 1000m later in the week, while Brian Malfesi and Vincent Jourdenais will line up in the K2 1000m on Tuesday.

Frank Amyot secured Canada’s first ever Olympic medal in canoe sprint by placing first in the C1 1000m race during the 1936 Games in Berlin, Germany. Since the introduction of canoe sprint, Canada has earned 24 Olympic medals in canoe and kayak events. Tokyo 2020 marks the first Games in history to include women’s canoe.

More information on the canoe and kayak sprint events can be found on the Tokyo 2020 website here.

Race previews:

Sunday August 1

Monday August 2

Tuesday August 3

Wednesday August 4

Thursday August 5

Friday August 6

PDF Here.

Athlete List

Alternates: Lissa Bissonette, Courtney Stott