Olympics RADCast 2004

Michal Martikan of Slovakia navigates the course during the men's kayak K-1 single's event. The sport reached the Olympic Games in 1924. Almost half a century later, in Munich in 1972, canoe/kayak branched out into the dramatic whitewater version, the slalom. Slalom events, involving men's K1, C1, and C2, and women's K1 (denoting one or two paddlers in a canoe or kayak), require the paddlers to negotiate 20 to 25 gates in turbulent water over a 300-meter course. (Photo courtesy of Kodak and photographer Michael Steele/Getty Images.)