September 21

Paddlers' injuries keep a low profile

PHOTO: Czech Republic two-man canoe team of Jaroslav Volf and Ondrej Stepanek maneuver around poles. They came in fifth.

Whitewater canoeing and kayaking injuries may not be something the public knows a lot about. Of course, whitewater canoeing and kayaking aren't known as spectator sports.

After all, the sports' pioneers were adventurers who sought to get as far from civilization as possible and test their skills against the forces of nature. But as whitewater paddling has become more popular, courses are being designed for competition -- and for spectator viewing. Some competitive whitewater courses have been created in natural environments, but manufactured courses are also springing up in areas of the world where canoeing and kayaking are most popular. One such site is Penrith Lakes, just outside of Sydney, where the Olympic paddling competitions are taking place.

Lower extremity injuries are almost nonexistent in paddling, as the sport is performed from either a kneeling position (canoeing) or a seated position with the legs outstretched (kayaking). The arms and shoulders do most of the actual paddling, and it makes sense that those areas are subject to injury. Researchers from Kansai Medical University in Osaka, Japan, found in a 1999 study that 20.9% of paddlers reported shoulder pain and 10.8% reported wrist pain. Their findings were published in the Journal of Orthopedic Science.

Tenosynovitis of the wrist occurred in 23% of participants in marathon canoeing in a study by researchers from the University of Cape Town Medical School in South Africa. Although marathon canoeing is not an Olympic event, the Cape Town researchers noted that whitewater conditions contributed to the occurrence of wrist pain in the marathoners. Their findings were published in the April 1999 issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

But watching the paddlers maneuver through a slalom course, it's obvious that a great deal of effort is required of the torso as well. The paddler is required to pass through "gates" marked by two hanging poles. No part of the athlete, boat, or paddle can touch the poles, but since the poles do not quite reach the surface of the water, it's possible for the paddler to "limbo" under, maneuvering the boat around the pole to cut the corner as tightly as possible and save precious tenths of a second.

The toll this maneuvering takes on the abdominal and lower back muscles has also shown up in the clinical studies. The Osaka researchers found that 22.5% of paddlers reported lumbago of either myofascial or spondylolytic origin.

Tenths of a second don't matter that much if you're Thomas Schmidt of Germany, who blew away the competition in the single-man kayaking event on Wednesday, with a combined two-run score that was 6.5 seconds faster than silver medalist Paul Ratcliffe of Great Britain. But to U.S. entrant Scott Shipley, who missed out on a medal by only 1.5 seconds, those few tenths could have been the difference.

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