BEIJING - Now that Benn Fraker has made his way down the Olympic whitewater slalom course four times, he figures he'll try to do something REALLY hard.

Get in to see one of the most popular sports in China.

"I had my heart set on watching table tennis," he said, "but it sounds like we won't be able to get tickets to that."

Still, it's been a fun trip to China for Fraker, a 19-year-old from Georgia who placed sixth in the men's canoe single (C1) final Tuesday, and his cheering section.

"I'm happy overall. I crossed the finish line laughing, and it's been a great experience," he said. "I got four runs at the Olympics; my family got to watch: brother, sister, mom and dad, my grandmother, aunt and uncle."

Fraker was trying to do what only five Americans have: win an Olympic medal in canoe/kayak slalom. Like its flatwater counterpart, where the United States has been a little more successful (11 medals), the slalom version of the sport has been dominated by Europeans.

Slovakia's Michal Martikan took gold in Fraker's event, the first final held out at the impressive Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park. It was built specifically for the Beijing Games and has been open for a year. It's about an hour's ride northeast of the main Olympic village, through some farmland and past the large Yangjing Beer Brewery.

The slalom course is notable for its aesthetically pleasing look - and its athletically challenging rapids.

"The whitewater here is more difficult than any other course in the world, I think," Fraker said. "If you got off line just a little bit on this course, it's hard to get back on because there aren't many breaks. It's pretty constant and pushy all the way down."

Fraker found out how just how pushy when he tried a move that briefly sent him underwater in the final

"I came out of gate 3," he said, "and saw an opportunity to go into gate 4 and cut the line and take a bit of a risk. It didn't work out exactly like I'd hoped, but I guess that's the inherent nature of risk – sometimes it doesn't work."

In fact, whitewater was thought too "risky" – i.e., too expensive and complicated to build a facility for - for many years.

Though the flatwater version of this sport traces its Olympic roots to 1936 for the men and 1948 for the women, slalom is a newer discipline. It was first introduced in the 1972 Munich Games, and American Jamie McEwan took a bronze medal there in single canoe.

The Germans' enthusiasm for the whitewater sport was what prompted its inclusion into those Olympics. However, it would be 20 more years before slalom returned to the Summer Games. That was at the Barcelona Olympics, where the United States took a gold in men's double canoe and a bronze in women's single kayak. American women have won two additional medals since then, one in 1996 and one in 2004.

Here in China, Scott Parsons of Bethesda, Md., was thought to be one of the best hopes for the United States to get another medal in whitewater. But he didn't advance to the finals in single kayak after missing a gate.

Instead, it was the teen Fraker who was able to make the final in single canoe.

"I'm a little disappointed," he said of leaving with no medal. "But I guess I've never finished a competition where I didn't feel that way. There are a lot of positive things I can take from this."

Fraker thinks he may be back for the London Games four years from now and maybe make more of a dent into Europe's domination of the sport.

"I certainly hope so," he said. "We've been sort of playing second fiddle to the other countries for a while now."