"We do not need a revolution to make our federation fit for the future, we need an evolution," the 58-year-old former ICF vice-president said after his landslide election on November 6 at the organisation's Congress in Rome.

Konietzo's measured statement followed a more impassioned message from outgoing President José Perurena, the Spaniard who has kept canoeing buoyant during his 13 years in that role.

"I believe our sport is going through an extraordinary moment and challenges have always motivated me," Perurena told the Congress.

"It is fundamental that, starting from today, there is a team that is working for the next 10 to 12 years.

"So I believe we need new ideas, we need new generations to give a new momentum to our sport.

"If we remain stuck, we could become a sport without any future.

"In Paris organisers wanted to introduce extreme sports, so to do that we had to reduce some disciplines.

"If we talk about baseball-softball with a view to Los Angeles 2028, there would be the need for 100 quotas which would be taken away from other sports that are not appealing.

"For this reason I am telling you that we have to evolve.

"We have to develop our federation and the goal of the new Board has to be to keep our quotas.

"We have to be ready to the fact the IOC might ask us to introduce some changes, as has happened in other federations.

"We cannot lose our quotas and we cannot lose our medals, so we have to change."

Speaking to insidethegames on his first full day behind his desk in Lausanne as ICF President, Konietzko summarised the position regarding change.

"As the previous President said of the ICF, we are ready for the future because we were very brave with some decisions in the past," Konietzko, who is German, said.

"It is always necessary to modernise our sport, even though it can sometimes be difficult.

"The sporting landscape is changing constantly and you have to change with it. I think we have shown already that we can adapt and we will continue to do so. We will benefit from the decisions we have made in the past."

But in terms of envisioning future changes, Konietzko is measured in his response.

"In Los Angeles 2028 we may have to be adding more extreme canoeing or continuing to change the programme.

"But we have to consider that we have been doing a lot of changes during the last 10 years with the women’s events in Tokyo and the extreme events in Paris.

"And we also have to think a lot about our athletes. If someone comes in that means we have to scratch other disciplines and athletes are affected by our decisions.

"Of course I will not exclude change, but I will change a little bit the way how we decide about changes.

"I will be speaking to all the federations, more as we did it in the past. I know it is sometimes a difficult problem to involve the federations, but it is necessary to change the programmes together.

"We are always happy to work with the IOC and host cities, and if they have a special wish or request we will see if we are able to deliver that.

"We have so many different disciplines that can be of benefit to the Games and we are ready, but we will do nothing before we have discussed important changes with our national federations as well as our athletes."

He readily agreed that it is a difficult balance to maintain.

"Exactly," Konietzko said. "That is not only mine it is challenge for all Presidents of International Federations, to keep the balance. I will do my best. To do so, you have to walk a difficult line sometimes.

"There are other things we can do but we are generally in really good shape and that’s what I got on feedback during the last two days from the IOC as well as ASOIF (Association of Summer Olympic International Federations).

"We are always looking at innovative ways to present our sport and we are ready for changes. But at the moment we have to do everything to make extreme canoeing a success and to improve our sport's presentation. And to continue to be a strong part of the Olympic Movement. And there I think we are in a really good position."

Konietzko’s confidence was based on extensive discussions he had just had in Lausanne with senior ASOIF and IOC representatives.

"I am a rookie, so I have to learn a lot, but I was very impressed about the perception of our sport by the IOC and ASOIF," he said.

So what did Konietzko make of Perurena’s comment about it being an "extraordinary moment" for the sport?

"I think he meant that in a different way," Konietzko responded. "I think he means sport in general is going through a very unusual time.

"We are good as sport, judging by the audience figures we gained at the Tokyo Olympics and the recognition we have recently had from the IOC over our efforts.

"In Tokyo for the first time canoeing medals went to four continents. We have significantly increased the reach of our sport in North and South America, Asia and Oceania. We have made a big improvement.

"But we have to do everything possible as we look ahead to make the next Olympics a success also.

"So we cannot rest on our laurels - but we have so many beautiful global disciplines, competitive and recreational, and we can do so much more to be visible around the world.

"We are ready to do that - we are taking all possible advice from Jose and going in the right direction."

The Olympic viewing figures have not yet been released - but they were clearly more than satisfactory.

"We at the ICF and also the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations have been very, very encouraged by the figures we saw," Konietzko revealed.

"There was a really big rise in our reach in parts of the world where previously we haven’t performed as well - South America, Asia, Oceania - figures were outstanding. We had some very good results in regions where we have previously not registered strongly."

Part of the Oceania figures were a reflection of the gold medals earned for Australia by Jessica Fox in the women’s C1 slalom event and Jean van der Westhuyzen and Thomas Green in the men’s K2 1,000 metres sprint.

There was also the unprecedented golden sprint treble earned by New Zealand’s Lisa Carrington in the K1 200m, K1 500m and K2 500m in company with Caitlin Regal.

"That was also extremely popular because Lisa was attempting something no other athlete had achieved before," said Konietzko. "So that raised a lot of interest as well."

Konietzko points out that the ICF has an unusually wide remit in terms of forms of activity.

"We are one sports federation but we have to look after nine different disciplines," he explained.

"We are in a good position regarding participation in our non-Olympic disciplines, but it is one of our objectives that we want to include more of our exciting disciplines in multi-sport events.

"We are talking about European Championships, about Commonwealth Games, about European Games, about Beach Games."

The Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games already fit the bill, with two sports and one demonstration sport in the form of slalom, sprint and a traditional boat race.

The 2022 World Games in Birmingham in Alabama will feature canoe marathon and canoe polo.

At the multi-sport European Championships in Munich next year the programme will feature canoe sprint and Para canoe sprint.

"There are so many opportunities that we can make beautiful offers to all these organisers," Konietzko reflected.

"In Munich we will be one of two sports, along with rowing, to feature a Para event. That was really well appreciated by the Munich organisers and German politicians.

"We are also providing slalom and sprint at the 2023 European Games in Kraków.

"It’s not completely clear where a sprint event can take place but our European association is strongly lobbying that we will find a place."

The prospect of canoeing making its debut in the Commonwealth Games, perhaps in the next edition to be held after next year’s competition in the English city of Birmingham, is also energising the new President.

Canoeing has been recognised by the Commonwealth Games Federation as a sport which has potential for inclusion in future Commonwealth Games. In becoming a "category two" sport it was eligible for inclusion by prospective cities within their selection of up to seven additional sports along with the traditional core sports, although the CGF's new strategic plan will give future hosts even more flexibility. Only athletics and swimming will be compulsory.

"We notice that the Commonwealth Games Federation changed their policy and that they are now more open for new sport," Konietzko said.

"We have to check that a little bit more in detail but maybe we can make them an offer and the Commonwealth Games can benefit from our sport.

"For example ocean racing is a very traditional sport in some parts of the Commonwealth world such as Britain, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

"We will have to have discussions, but you can ask me the question maybe in six months and I can give you a more detailed answer."

insidethegames reported earlier this month that the ICF had had an overall loss of more than CHF5 million (£4 million/$5.5 million/€4.75 million) for the two years to end-2020.

Audited accounts accessible on the body’s website put the global loss for 2019 at just under CHF3.3 million (£2.7 million/$3.6 million/€3.1 million) and for 2020 at CHF2.5 million (£2 million/$2.75 million/€2.4 million).

Revenues for last year totalled just CHF404,000 (£328,000/$443,000/€383,000), reflecting the postponement of Tokyo 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic.

A separate itemised report indicated that legal costs over the two years were nearly twice as high as originally budgeted, at €442,609.12 (£378,873.40/$511,656.14).

A note labels these as "stand up paddling legal costs and legal costs against French Federation [Court of Arbitration for Sport] (CAS) case".

"Like all federations we were affected by these terrible two years," Konietzko reflected. "But because of our strong financial position - thanks to my predecessors and the clever decisions they made - we were able to absorb the downturn as we had some reserves we could use.

"I am confident that now the worst is behind us and we can very quickly return to a much stronger position."

The legal costs were incurred by a long-running dispute between the ICF and the International Surfing Association (ISA) over who had the right to stage stand-up paddling (SUP) events.

In August 2020, the CAS ruled that both federations could continue to stage SUP events, but that ISA should govern the sport at Olympic level.

Konietzko, meanwhile, is making it clear that he will give a slalom swerve around any further costly legal actions.

"The case has been ruled on and it is clear both federations can continue to run competitions and it is my intention for the future to avoid any dispute with other federations," he said.

“Of course we have our position, but maybe there are other ways to find agreement, and so I am very confident we can safeguard the future.

"But regarding SUP, we ran this year in Hungary the biggest ever SUP World Championships and we have hosted very successful competitions around the world.

"Next year we will host the SUP World Championships in Poland and we have a lot of applications from hosts who want to host future versions of the event.

"At this time we are not talking to other federations. We are only looking to ourselves and we are ready and doing a lot to help to improve this sport.

"We want to organise very professional competitions, and this is the feedback we are getting about the quality of our SUP events.

"We are not looking to the Olympics in terms of SUP. Our objective is to organise the best possible competition for our athletes. And I hope we will get a lot of good feedback.

"If there is to be a pathway to the Olympic Games for SUP it is something that has to be made by the IOC alone."

It could be observed that the silver lining to this SUP ruling is that it does something to relieve the Olympic squeeze on ICF events.

"We are always under pressure because we have a lot of disciplines, and frankly it’s a competition amongst them all," Konietzo conceded.

The new President has emphasised the achievement of a gender balance within the sport, and points out that, for the first time, the ICF has two female commission chairs - Germany’s Manuela Gawehn was elected to lead the Whitewater Commission and Noemi Horvath of Hungary leads the SUP Commission.

"The problem is more on a different level, however," he added. "Unfortunately we still have too few women as coaches in our clubs and national teams and there we must provide assistance to make it easier for women to complete their education as coaches and to take over responsibility in our clubs and national federations.

"That is our objective and we need to get more women to get into our sport but we also need to get into everyone’s mind that having more women is a great benefit for our sport and this is something I intend to put on the priority of our agenda."

Konietzko welcomes the recent appointment of Jessica Fox to the IOC Athletes’ Commission.

"This was very important," he said. 

"Jessica is a wonderful ambassador for our sport. I have worked closely with her for the last six years when she has been a member of our Athletes’ Commission and she was at the front of the campaign to introduce more women’s events to the Olympics.

"I am sure she will play a very important role not just of canoeing but for the general advancement of women in sport.

"And this gives ICF another strong voice inside the IOC, which is also very important of our federation."

Asked to envisage how he would like to see the sport in 10 years' time, Konietzko responded: "It is difficult to look at the future, but we have a strong team in place and we are already a strong sport.

"What I want to achieve is that everybody understands if they are entering the world of canoeing that we are one of the biggest sports in the world.

"That we already know but it could be news to the public. Because there are not so many sports that you can do in almost all places in the world - running, cycling, maybe swimming and then we have canoeing.

"There are people around the world doing that, and I hope that in 10 years’ time if someone is saying 'canoeing' everyone has an image in their mind and knows what it means."