London To Host 2015 Canoe Slalom Champs

London has won its bid to host the 2015 Canoe Slalom World Championships – the first major event to be confirmed for an Olympic venue after the 2012 Games.

The Lee Valley course, host to the 2012 canoe slalom events, beat a bid from Bourg-Saint-Maurice in the French Alps.

London’s Olympic venues failed in bids to host the 2015 World Athletics and 2014 Hockey World Cup.

The Lee Valley White Water Centre was the first brand new London 2012 venue to be completed, in December 2010, at a cost of £31m.

Britain’s top slalom canoeists have had exclusive use of the course since then, but Lee Valley opens to the public – and foreign rivals – on 22nd April.

Bringing major events in Olympic sports to Britain after the Games have concluded is a cornerstone of the London 2012 organising committee’s ambition to deliver what it calls a ‘legacy’ after the Olympics.

But previous attempts to secure the sporting side of that legacy have failed, most notably London’s bid to stage the 2015 World Championships in Athletics.

The city was forced to withdraw from that bidding process in November 2010, as continued uncertainty over the future of the Olympic Stadium meant the bid team could not even guarantee a running track would remain in place.

One week later, London lost a bid to bring the men’s and women’s Hockey World Cups to the Olympic Park in 2014.