The North Fork Championship is an extreme kayaking race that brings the best paddlers in the world to Idaho to take Jacob's Ladder on the North Fork of the Payette River.
When insurance companies can force entire prestigious events to disappear, it's indicative of how ridiculous of a direction our country is heading in. It's personal to me, as I live in the town that this river gave its name to. It's like being told you can no longer have family reunions with more than 8 people.
It's not the racers themselves, but the spectators lining the river banks down to the river , on rocks and such that surely scare any insurance company or event organizer. Crowd control would definitely need to be done. I can see them erecting temporary fencing along the road, but then the shut down of the traffic becomes another hassle.
Its a problem not unique to WW kayaking but to any organised sport comp in the US and also the reason many landowners shut down access to a river or rock face (for climbers) on their land as they may be liable if something goes wrong. In the hyper-legal US of today unless every possible risk is covered by insurance then you would be insane to hold a comp.
spot on. overly litigious culture. people often demonize those shutting off access, but 99% of those people aren't just grumpy, they are afraid of getting sued and having everything taken from them.
@@CyBORG1208 Yup, another great example being the demise of the Tour of California over a decade ago. It was the only top tier World Tour level road cycling stage race held in the US and was growing in popularity year on year and the teams from the European WT level peloton all used to come. It ended because the costs of holding a 7 stage road race on public roads spiralled out of control.
@@epincion I did not know that was why it ended. However, I am very familiar with it. I have been a mountain bike racer and rider since I was 9, grew up watching events like that, the giro and TDF on OLN. I always wonder how the insurance is with the explosion of bike specific gravity parks like Kanuga, Windrock, etc. Makes sense that the ski areas can handle the costs and have the USFS helping them out, but I cross my fingers that litigiousness doesn't kill these new smaller ventures
@@CyBORG1208 The other issue wth road races is that the US public are not supportive of public road closures and also the costs to pay for policing the closure.
You gonna pay the insurance fees? You gonna pay the fees to the police and traffic authorities for road closures, extra policing? Your talking thousands of dollars for just one event like this.
