McLaughlin Whitewater - 1996 Olympic Course

1996 OLYMPIC WHITEWATER COURSE
Upper Ocoee River
Ducktown, Tennessee

At the 1996 Summer Olympics, the world saw history in the making as canoe and kayak competitors battled for medals in the first Olympic whitewater course built in an active (and previously unstable) section of river.

The Upper Ocoee River in Tennessee was re-engineered from nature’s original design. Rick McLaughlin and John Anderson set out to transform the rocky, dry, and acidic Ocoee River in southeastern Tennessee into the biggest and most challenging whitewater man had made, using innovative stabilization techniques that are now used throughout the U.S. by numerous engineers.

PROJECT CHALLENGES: The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games and USDA Forest Service expected to see an Olympic course that would “look good, work well and stay put,” according to Paul Wright, the Ocoee Whitewater Center Project Manager. It needed to be:

“Natural”- looking, to create interest for this otherwise unappealing section of river
Challenging for elite athletes
Permanently low-maintenance, capable of withstanding floods which easily move four foot boulders. The adjacent highway had washed out numerous times, and project managers worried that building the course might further destabilize the river.

ATTRIBUTES OF THE DESIGN: The 1996 Olympic venue was an applauded success, a complement to the river environment and community:

“This is without a doubt the most fantastic whitewater slalom course in the world.” — Albert Woods, former Chairman of the International Canoe Federation
"If water could tell the story about its journey from the mountains to the sea, its travel and adventure through the Ocoee Whitewater Center would be the most exciting part." — Joe Jacobi, 1992 Olympic gold Medal Winner (Men's Double Canoe)
“The course has sustained almost no damage since its construction, surviving numerous floods.” — Jerry Barrow, USDAFS Project Engineer

The course was certainly strong enough to resist flooding (while dropping thirty feet) and blended seamlessly into the adjacent geological features,” said Paul Wright, U.S. Forest Service Project Director. “The competitive channel has the appearance of a natural riverbed, but with strength and stability that even nature does not provide.” As such, the course represents the ultimate in man-made "roughened channel" design. Never before or since has a man-made channel replicated a river more naturally.

Link to 1996 Olympic Course on the web.