Three-time Olympic champion Tony Estanguet joined Rio 2016 President Carlos Arthur Nuzman on Thursday (26 November) at the inauguration of the canoe slalom course for next year’s Olympic Games. And the Frenchman, who is now an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member, was highly impressed with the new circuit in Deodoro Olympic Park that is being used this week for the test event.

Get clued up about canoe slalom with our interactive infographic

“This place is fantastic, really beautiful,” said Estanguet, who is also a vice-president of the International Canoe Federation (ICF). “I couldn’t have imagined it when I came to visit two years ago and they showed me the place. Now I can see the final result and it’s marvellous. It is what the best canoeists want – demanding and challenging.”

“Every five metres the course presents a different challenge”

Tony Estanguet

Estanguet – who won Olympic gold in 2000, 2004 and 2012, plus three world titles – was one of the first canoeists to negotiate the new course, as one of the ‘demo-runners’ who inaugurated the course on Thursday.

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The course was planned to be both a high-level competition venue and serve as a public leisure facility. “We have here an extraordinary competition location, with a different visual impact, in the middle of a very green area,” said Nuzman, after receiving the key to the venue from Rio mayor Eduardo Paes, alongside Rio governor Luiz Fernando Pezão and Ricardo Leyser, the secretary of high-performance at the Ministry of Sport.