What's that sport?!

In the vast world of  canoe and kayak there is a sport known as Canoe Slalom. It is one of the two canoe and kayak sports that are a part of the Olympic program. The simplest way to describe Canoe Slalom is to relate it to Downhill Ski Slalom. Athletes ski down the mountain side as quickly as possible  while having to navigate  flags along the way. Canoe Slalom is similar in that we navigate gates, but ours comprise of two hanging poles per gate that we must go between. Now for the differences, aside from the glaringly obvious frozen vs. melted water. Canoe Slalom athletes incur a 2 second penalty for making contact with a gate, and a 50 second penalty for missing a gate all together. A slalom course will consist of 18 to 25 gates. Our objective is the fastest time from start to finish, and to avoid penalty seconds along the way. The last bit of fun...6 to 8 of our gates will be "upstream gates" where we will actually come below and up through the gate. These are identified by the red stripes. The remaining gates have green stripes.