Shillong, Oct 13: The 5th edition Megha Kayak Festival 2022, being held from October 13–16, 2022, began on Thursday at the Whitewater Village on the Umtrew River in Umtham, Ri Bhoi district, with over 80 international and national athletes expected to participate.
The Ri Bhoi Water Sports & Tourism Cooperative Society Ltd, in collaboration with the Meghalaya Tourism Department, have been organising the Megha Kayak Festival (MKF), an international whitewater kayaking competition. The Megha Kayak Festival has two main events: the Downriver Time-trail, in which competitors must kayak down a 350-meter-long, difficult whitewater section; and the Extreme Slalom race, in which four competitors face off in an elimination race format.
The International Canoe Federation (ICF) officially approved the Extreme Slalom as an official Olympic event, and the sport will debut at the 2024 Olympic Games.
This year’s event is expected to be one of the biggest adventure sports extravaganzas in the nation, the event’s organisers announced.
Current and former Olympians like Giovanni De Gennaro (Italy), Sofia Reinoso (Mexico), and Vavra Hradilek (Czech Republic) are on the list of athletes, as are world champions in extreme kayaking Nouria Newman (France) and Adrian Mattern (Germany). The number of such talented athletes competing in the event is growing every day, and the organisers anticipate that participants from over 20 different countries will eventually participate in the festival.
This event is being held in the Whitewater village of Umtham, which has world-class facilities for the competition, including a ramp that spans the length of the river. At the beginning of the race, kayakers will utilise this ramp to throw themselves into the water. In order to accommodate the visiting athletes, camping and restroom facilities have been set up, and the visitors’ areas have also been improved to accommodate a big number of spectators.
This event aims to encourage adventurous travel and make Meghalaya one of the world’s top locations for water sports. This year’s event attracts attention from the worldwide media because so many highly regarded adventure sports athletes have arrived in Meghalaya to compete. The event’s organisers are certain that it will give the state the much-needed boost it needs to become one of the top locations for adventure sports in the globe.
