Rio 2016 Canoe Slalom

This project involved the development of a whitewater centre in Rio de Janeiro which hosted the Canoe Slalom for the 2016 Olympic Games. The venue is operated in legacy for canoeing and rafting.

The project involved an artificial lake, pumping stations, boat conveyors and two whitewater channels The flow is pumped to the two channels at a combined flow rate of 22m3/s.

Working for the architectural and engineering consortium responsible for the whole of the Deodoro cluster of venues, Cundall in collaboration with Whitewater Parks International (WPI), delivered a detailed concept design. This included drawings for all of the main structures along with performance specifications for the water treatment, mechanical and electrical installations which were delivered in an extremely tight timeframe.

Cundall undertook Computational Fluid Dynamic Modelling (CFD) of the lake and pumping station intake to refine the hydraulics of the system. In collaboration with WPI and the Czech Technical University in Prague, a 1:13 physical scale model was developed to test the performance of the whitewater channels.

A key challenge for the development was to develop a cost effective design and to contend with the sloping terrain of the site. Incorporating the Olympic Games overlay was a key consideration of the design development.