Colorado whitewater design firms float London Olympic venue

Two whitewater engineering firms from Glenwood Springs and Lyons designed and developed the $48 million Lee Valley Whitewater Centre, where next month the world's best paddlers will compete in the London Games.

Glenwood Springs' Whitewater Park International designed the first-of-its-kind, self-contained venue with two channels, a 1,000-foot Olympic-caliber racing channel and a less-steep 525-foot training channel.

The company designed the Penrith Whitewater Stadium for the Sydney Games in 2000 - forging a new model for stand-alone whitewater parks far from actual whitewater. And the London park is equally progressive, learning from the whitewater challenges in the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing parks.

"It was built on lessons learned," said Bob Campbell, managing director of Whitewater Parks International, noting how Lee Valley's consistent flows and a separate training channel are harvesting universal accolades from both athletes and organizers. "Athens and Beijing were both creative endeavors but a little too much of that 'Let's go bigger and let's go better than ever before' mentality.' That doesn't always work."

Both the Athens and Beijing courses have fallen largely dormant since their Olympic debuts. The goal for the London park was to build something that could be used for decades to come, by not only high-caliber paddlers but kids in rafts and recreational users.

"Sustainability was a key driver," Campbell said. "London said they didn't want any of the previous problems, so we did something tried and true. We built on our previous successes.That didn't keep us from allowing some innovations - because there are many - but we don't need something wild just by being different. We can be different and smart."

More than 130,000 rafters have already descended the park since it opened in December 2010, 18 months before its Olympic debut. Four months after opening the International Canoe Federation tapped the venue as host of the 2015 Canoe Slalom World Championships.

Even before the brightest lights shine on the park, it is considered a legacy venue.

It's not just Campbell's contemporary design ? finished on time and on budget ? that is culling cheers from paddlers and Olympic organizers. Lyons-based S2O Design employed their innovative RapidBlocs ? proprietary, adjustable plastic blocks that can channel moving water to precise specifications ? at Lee Valley and the system already has swept the whitewater park industry.

"Everyone loves it and it's led to a bunch of new projects for us," said S2O engineer and three-time Olympic slalom kayaker Scott Shipley, who has installed his modular RapidBlocs in seven channels in England, the Czech Republic and the U.S. in the last two years. "It's become the new paradigm for park design."

Before the Athens Games, park designers were adjusting features up to the final week before the Olympics. Shipley, who built a scale model of the park in a Boulder warehouse in 2010 to tweak the hydrology of the park, took a couple weeks to adjust a mere 11 of his 1,350 RapidBlocs at Lee Valley to secure ICF approval.

Athletes already are raving about the London park.

"It's challenging in a way that makes athletes want to be better," said Team USA slalom kayaker Caroline Queen. "It's consistent, which is hard to do in a whitewater course, especially an artificial one. A lot of artificial courses tend to be steep drops into pools and this is more of a gradual decline and that presents a unique challenge. I think that will add a new dimension to the races that is lacking in the bigger courses."

Scott Shipley's one-of-a-kind RapidBlocs are not just popular among whitewater course designers, who are embracing the ability to change features with a few minutes wrenching. For freestyle kayakers who have been vying for Olympic inclusion, RapidBlocs could become their biggest ally.

"Those guys really want to get into the Olympics and this can make that happen because you can add the features for free in a couple hours," said Shipley, an engineer and world champion slalom kayaker with more than few trophies in freestyle kayaking.

Winter Olympics organizers last year included skiers in halfpipe competition for the 2014 Winter Games after the success of snowboarders in the halfpipe and the ability to use the same venue for both disciplines. It's not a reach for freestyle kayakers to argue the same point. With a few hours adjustment, the Lee Valley whitewater slalom course can easily host the world's best freestyle paddlers. In fact a freestyle demonstration with five kayakers, including Tennessee's Dane Jackson, is scheduled during the London Games at Lee Valley.

"It would take us an hour or two to change that after a couple days of design and it cost nothing," Shipley said.

Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasontblevins

Source: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21141408/colorado-whitewater-design-firms-float-london-olympic-venue?source=rss

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