The International Canoe Federation and the International Olympic Committee has made the unfortunate decision to remove the canoe single 200 meter distance for men and the 500 meter distance for women from the upcoming Olympics. This choice negates a major variety of paddlers in their careers today and the paddlers of the future. Hopefully by bringing more attention to this issue, we can convince the ICF that this distance is a vital part of our sport. We need a large variety of race distances to equally represent our athletes.