Coraor’s Have No Fear of Whitewater Rapids
Those who enjoy offbeat stories will like this one. It’s certainly unusual. What isn’t shocking is that Huntington High School students like participating in sports and competitive activities. The Blue Devil athletic program has a century-long tradition. But, three teenage siblings at the school have taken a unique turn when it comes to their pursuits.
Although the Huntington sports program doesn’t include whitewater canoe and kayak slalom, it is an Olympic sport and Everett, a senior and his sophomore twin sisters Kaja and Juli Coraor are competing independently at the regional and national level. Kaja has even claimed an age-group national title.
Whitewater slalom competition involves the timed and scored negotiation of a series of 18 to 25 gates suspended over a 250 to 400 meter section of whitewater rapids. Penalty seconds assessed for errors in negotiation of the gates (two seconds per gate touched or 50 seconds for each gate missed) are added to the competitor’s time for each run in order to arrive at their total score.
Beginner level races are held on either flat water or easy rapids, which would be listed as “Class 1” on an international scale of river difficulty in which Class 5 is extremely difficult and Class 6 involves a severe risk of loss of life. Intermediate level races are held on Class 2-3 rapids, with international competition typically being contested on Class 4 water.
The Coraor siblings are all fine students and each is engaged in top-level coursework at Huntington High School. Their out-of-school activities surprised some teachers and coaches who were left in awe after seeing photos of the family members navigating the rapids.
Categories for Racers
Racers compete in categories based on gender, age group, and type of boat. In Olympic competition there are only three different boat types: single-person kayak (K-1), single-person decked canoe (C-1), and tandem decked canoe (C-2). Decked canoes don’t resemble the type of “open” canoes that some people may have paddled on a lake at summer camp.
These decked canoes look very similar to kayaks, completely enclosing the paddler, with the only difference being that decked canoes are slightly wider (a C-2 is also longer) and are paddled with the racer kneeling and using a single-bladed canoe paddle instead of the racer sitting and using a double-bladed paddle as in a kayak. At beginner and intermediate level slalom races in the U.S., the competition typically includes a variety of open canoe categories, in addition to the Olympic-eligible decked boat categories.
Everett Coraor’s primary boat is C-1, although he also races in C-2 with his sister Juli, and occasionally in solo open canoe (OC-1). Kaja and Juli Coraor primarily compete in kayak, although they both have recently begun racing in C-1 at some of the easier races.
“Whitewater slalom is all about knowing exactly what the river will do to your boat and making quick decisions to use that force to your advantage,” Everett Coraor said.
In addition to racing tandem decked canoe (C-2) with Everett, Juli sometimes teams up with her father, John in C-2. Although they each had some prior experience paddling tandem boats with their parents, all three students began paddling whitewater and racing slalom in solo boats when they were 10 years old.
Each of the Huntington siblings has been a winner of the Penn Cup Championship, a beginner race series in Pennsylvania, in their primary boats and in some secondary race categories as well. At the intermediate level, they have each placed first in the Class 2 New England Slalom Series in at least one race category. In 2009 the Coraor’s were each named to the New England regional junior team.
Season Highlight
The highlight of this year’s race season for Kaja and Juli Coraor was the opportunity to compete at the age group national championships at Cascade Falls in Penn Yan, New York last June. Racers were allowed to take two timed race runs down the course, with the better of the two scores counting for determination of the final results.
Juli Coraor placed third after the first runs, but was edged into fourth after the second run, just one position away from the medal platform. “Whitewater slalom racing is fun because it is so different from other sports,” Juli said. “Few sports involve kayaks and rivers. In addition, each individual race is different from the next because each river is different, whereas other sports tend to be rather monotonous.
She said “attending the races and practices the day before the races is quite fun. We are friends with most of the people who come, even though they live in places like Pennsylvania, upstate New York and DC. Therefore, the races and award ceremonies at the end of each race are very jovial.”
In first place at the national championships after first runs despite two missed gates, Kaja Coraor faced stiff competition when the runner-up turned in a penalty-free second run. However, Kaja’s running time on the course was notably faster and she able to reduce her penalties sufficiently during her second run to capture the whitewater slalom national championship in the K-1W Cadet (14 and under) division.
“In whitewater I enjoy the satisfaction of controlling my boat and making it do what I want in the middle of the chaos of a challenging rapid,” Kaja Coraor said. “I particularly enjoy whitewater slalom competition because, in addition to the challenge of the whitewater itself, you have to be very precise in controlling your boat to follow the fastest line through the gates without touching them. This increases the challenge, and the satisfaction from a successful run, without the increased risks that come from paddling even more difficult whitewater.”
They go about their business at Huntington High School as ordinary students – just regular teenagers. But, the Coraor’s are really fearless and they have the awards to prove it.
“Before the race, of course everyone gets a little nervous, like in any sport,” Juli Coraor acknowledged. “The actual kayaking or canoeing is always tiring, but exhilarating.”
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