(2015 ☆ ARCHIVED) Adidas Sickline, The Extreme Kayak World Championship - Austria

ADIDAS SICKLINE, THE EXTREME KAYAK WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP (Austria) - Nominee for the 2015 Industry Professional of the Year award.

Website: www.adidas-sickline.com/en, Faceook: www.facebook.com/adidassickline

The Adidas Sickline is considered the most well known and official extreme kayak race on the planet; it is widely accepted as the World Championships of extreme kayak racing. It has been evolving over the last 8 years under the guidance and inspiration of Olaf Obsommer who has lead it to develop into a very special event with paddlers from all over the globe competing. 

Every year 150 male athletes and a growing number of female athletes (this year had 24 female competitors up from 15 in 2014) travel to the famous Wellerbrücke rapids on the Oetz River in Austria.

The course is a stretch of Class 5 whitewater that runs late in the season when the levels are comparatively low to the rest of the year. It is located just upstream of Oetz and has perfect access for paddlers along with the general public who can walk to the river and watch the kayaking from the stands or fenced pathways. Although this is not the most extreme race, its nature creates extremely tight and exciting racing where narrow margins of time separate the top finishers.


Sickline is one of few extreme races to have professional media coverage and at present is one of the few to be streamed online worldwide, presenting a wonderful and exciting branch of paddlesports for all to watch. The event is live streamed online with commentary from kayak athlete Ben Brown and the TV broadcast is shown in 48 countries in 18 different languages. This year the race was also shown on Sports Deutschland, the channel of the German Olympic Committee with German commentary.

Sickline also has fantastic social media coverage with updates being uploaded during the run-up, during and after the event, keeping the event in the public eye and prominent in the paddlesports community. With nearly 8000 followers online, paddlesports publications including Kayak Session and Kanu Magazin continuously share news about the event from their own feeds and through their own social media channels.

It is the influence of Adidas as well as the dedicated organisational team that have generated this media coverage, usually observed in other more mainstream and popular sports.

The program consists of a qualification race down the lower sections of the racecourse down to the top of the Oetz slalom site. The top 48 competitors then make their way up to the Wellerbrücke to compete in two rounds of knock out head-to-head racing before competing in the Super Final containing the top 15 competitors. The results from this final give the best athletes their ranking as well as crowning the 2015 Sickline World Champion - this emphasis on the programme format and its organisation allow the event to run smoothly and on time each year!

Managed by Adidas, athletes are put at the heart of the event. They are provided with food throughout the competition period; an athlete area consisting of seating; and a sports massage centre (that the athletes adore!) where all competitors are able to make use of the Adidas physiotherapistss and remain injury free.

In summary, the Adidas Sickline fully deserves its nomination for the 'Industry Professional Award' for their outstanding delivery of both promoting extreme kayak racing to the public but also running an event, which truly looks after its athletes, and allows gives them the best possible chance to succeed in a fair and safe manner.

This is a 2015 archived nominee. Voting has closed.