Ni Challarain stays on course

KAYAKING: Some Olympic venues are always worth visiting for their spectacle alone. In Athens it's got to be the Helliniko Complex, just south of the city and down past the long strip of beach bars and small harbours. On first impression it seems as vast as an airport - which in fact it was, before the city found a better site to land its planes up to the north.

Across this huge expanse they've built two baseball fields, a softball stadium with three fields, the three hockey pitches, and the 14,000-seater indoor arena to house the fencing, basketball, and handball. Yet all those are dwarfed by Helliniko's proudest creation, the canoe-kayak slalom centre.

One is almost fooled by the Disneyland-type setting, the crowd perhaps queuing for the water ride of their lives, the theme of which would surely be the last scene in Cape Fear. It is totally artificial, and yet a seriously competitive course for only the true masters of canoes and kayaks.

Three times bigger than the course built for the Sydney Olympics, it covers 27,000 square metres and uses six turbine pumps to transport the salt water at 17.5 cubic metres a second, resulting in the most vibrant whitewater effect ever created on an artificial course.

The giant bowl-shaped grandstand, clearly inspired by the old Greek theatres and seating 8,000 spectators, is the centre point but there are a host of hidden extras. A series of 75-metre conveyor belts, a sort of escalator for water, takes the competitors from the warm-up pool to the start.

It was here yesterday morning that Eadaoin Ní Challaráin, the 28-year-old from Galway, set out to reach the semi-finals of the women's K1 kayak slalom. The 19 starters had two heat runs, with the top 15 making this morning's semi-final, and the best 10 from that contesting the final 90 minutes later.

With 20 gates on each run - and a two-second penalty for each one hit - there is little room for error. Ní Challaráin hit gates five and 14 on the first run, but still ended up on the verge of qualification, her time of 121.42 enough for 15th place.

So to her second run. Again she hits gate five, and collides badly with gate 17. Worse still, she capsizes coming towards the finish line, which can be deemed as a "non-finish". By using a rodeo turn she rises just in time. Four more penalty seconds brings her time total time to 240.75 - soon revealed to be enough to qualify in 15th position.

Later she explains the thrill of qualifying, and the ride: "To be honest, I didn't know where I was standing after the first run. And coming through that last gate I tried to get as close to the poles as possible. I was so close I had to lean back, and suddenly I got a surge of water in my tail. But I've a great rodeo background, which was a blessing in disguise because I really got to use it today.

"And I love that course. It's such a good feeling coming down towards the finish. I don't know if that comes across from the television coverage but it's just fabulous. Even everything that's going on around it makes it a lot of fun."

So Ní Challaráin returns this morning (her semi-final set for 8.40 Irish time) and will find six gates moved, and a largely different run from yesterday. Germany's Jennifer Bongardt led the two heat runs but she too starts this morning with a clean slate.

"Well there's always room for improvement in the slalom," says Ní Challaráin, confident she can steal a place in the final. "I did improve in two key areas in the second run, and if I put all the parts together, and I'm confident that I can, then I know I can get a faster run. There's a real commitment to charge at those gates, but it's a fine line you're riding the whole time. But I'm starting with a clean slate and it's no time to hold back now."

Equally confident of his chances of making the final run is Eoin Rheinisch, the 24-year-old from Dublin who goes in tomorrow's men's K1 heats. Earlier this year he won the World Cup event in La Seu d'Urgell in Spain and just edged out his brother for the berth on the Irish Olympic team.

"I've been over that course hundreds of times now," says Rheinisch, whose great-grandfather, a known seafaring man, grew up by the Rhine in Germany. "And I don't think anyone will know it better than me. Winning the World Cup race against all the same people that are here has given me a lot of confidence. So you just have to let it flow, and not get too tense. I've known for a year I could make some top-10 positions, but it's all about being consistent over the two runs.

"So you don't think about the competition, because you're really only racing against yourself. It's a time-trial event, and you can't do anything about what the others do. My target is to just get to the end of the run and be pleased with my paddling."