VIDEO. “It's a bit like a garage sport”: Frenchman Titouan Castryck criticizes the lack of clear rules for kayak-cross at the Paris Olympics

Le Français avait pourtant été le meilleur de son quart de finale. EPA – ALI HAIDER

Penalized in the quarter-finals of the kayak-cross at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Frenchman Titouan Castryck criticized the lack of clarity concerning the rules of this new canoe-kayak discipline.

Mario Kart for some, Intervilles for others… kayak cross left no one indifferent during its first appearance at these Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The principle ? Four kayakers launch themselves into the water, a few meters above the ground, going down the course at full speed, passing next to tubes that have replaced the usual gates, not holding back from pushing each other.

"Four guys at the same time hitting buoys…"

In this little game, the French kayak silver medalist Titouan Castryck was the best in his quarter-final, finishing first and thinking he had qualified for one of the semi-finals… before being penalized several long minutes later for not having crossed one of the tubes correctly.

“I think that's the problem with our discipline, the Frenchman lamented to our colleagues at Eurosport following his penalty. It's been four years since it was created, the rules are not clear, it's a bit like a garage mechanic's sport final."

"The sport is already not trivial, four guys at the same time hitting each other in buoys… It's bound to be hard to give fouls, to judge penalties. It's complicated, there are injustices everywhere in sport, if you add so many factors like that, inevitably it gives this”, he added.