{"id":95125,"date":"2019-11-12T15:39:32","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T23:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=95125"},"modified":"2019-11-18T16:26:28","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T00:26:28","slug":"this-15-year-old-is-whitwater-kayakings-rising-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/paddle\/this-15-year-old-is-whitwater-kayakings-rising-star","title":{"rendered":"This 15-Year-Old Is Whitewater Kayaking’s Rising Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evy Leibfarth still remembers her first kayak. She was 4, the boat was bright pink and she loved it. Now, 15-year-old Leibfarth is in a different craft\u2014one built for competitive slalom racing that she\u2019s used to burst onto the international kayaking scene. <\/span><\/p>\n

In 2018, still too young to enter professional competitions, <\/span>she\u2019d already qualified for the U.S. women\u2019s national team<\/span><\/a>. So it came as no surprise when Leibfarth, finally eligible to compete, began dominating the field this year, making the finals during her <\/span>world cup debut in Slovakia<\/span><\/a> and podiuming at the <\/span>Junior World Championship <\/span><\/a>in extreme slalom in July. She chased these victories with a fourth-place finish in the <\/span>ICF Slalom Canoe World Championships<\/span><\/a> and took gold at the <\/span>Pan American Games in Peru<\/span><\/a>. In a single season, Leibfarth has established herself as one of the best paddlers in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRight now my focus is just on getting better,\u201d she says. Despite an abundance of recent success, Leibfarth is laser-focused on bolstering her whitewater skills. That\u2019s something it seems like she was born to do. Her mom, Jean Folger, worked as a whitewater rafting guide on the Chattooga River from 1991 to 1998, and was guiding on the Nantahala River while pregnant with Leibfarth in 2003. Her dad, Lee Leibfarth, is a former competitive racer who coached the U.S. junior national team between 1998 and 2002.\u00a0Leibfarth was raised running the Nantahala and the river still serves as her training ground when she\u2019s home in Bryson City, North Carolina. These days, though, she’s on the road more often than not.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve been home one month this entire year,\u201d Leibfarth says, ticking off the countries she\u2019s visited most recently\u2014Peru, Italy, Prague, Spain, Slovenia, Australia. She seems energized by the travel and talks animatedly about her recent trip to Tokyo to test a new human-made course for the 2020 Summer Games. \u201cI had never been to Asia and I love all these new experiences,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

No longer a river guide, Folger works as a freelance writer covering real estate while Lee serves as Leibfarth\u2019s coach. The family travels together and Leibfarth attends the <\/span>K12 International Academy<\/span><\/a>, which lets her enroll in online seminars and video conference with her teachers. Folger works from the road. \u201cAs long as we have a good internet connection, it\u2019s business as usual,\u201d Lee says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At home in Bryson City, Leibfarth\u2019s day starts at 7am with breakfast followed by a workout on Fontana Lake, a 15-minute trip from home. By 10am, Leibfarth has settled into her desk where she hits the books until 3:30pm, when the father-daughter duo heads back out to a slalom course on the Nantahala for practice part two. In addition to paddling, Leibfarth ticks off a few weight-training sessions and an occasional mountain bike ride each week. Though the schedule sounds intense, the family says it works.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about giving Evy her own space. We made a point never to push her into the sport when she was younger,\u201d Lee says. \u201cThere\u2019s serious training that has to be done, but we do our best to make it fun\u2014and we let Evy dictate how much we travel and how much she competes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Evy

Leibfarth’s recent world cup wins earned her qualifying spots in both the women’s canoe slalom and kayak slalom competitions for the 2020 Summer Games. (Photo Credit: Jean Folger)<\/p><\/div>\n

Leibfarth says she can’t imagine things any other way. She loves having her father as her coach, being on the river and working to get faster. She even seems to relish watching\u2014and rewatching\u2014video of her training sessions to find tiny improvements to give her an edge over the competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKayaking isn\u2019t all about strength and power, it\u2019s about learning how to be smooth on the water,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I race, I really like the adrenaline. When you\u2019re in the start gate, you have all this energy\u2014I think it\u2019s fun to push yourself to go faster.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Though kayaking is her primary focus, the athlete does have other interests. She loves to surf, is a star student (she\u2019ll likely graduate a year ahead of most other kids her age) and has a passion for fine art. The morning before a big race, she\u2019ll often sit down and sketch waves to help her find her calm and focus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For college, she’s thinking about majoring in graphic design or perhaps pursuing pre-med. She\u2019ll continue to paddle regardless of her major. \u201cEverybody kayaks where she grew up, and being able to pursue this sport with her friends made it fun,\u201d Lee says. \u201cUltimately, she\u2019s very self-motivated and goal-driven. That\u2019s just how she\u2019s wired.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about burnout, Lee says he doesn\u2019t foresee his daughter tiring of paddling anytime soon. \u201cShe loves everything about being a canoe slalom athlete\u2014from the daily training grind to the travel and the competitions,\u201d he says. \u201cNot once has she wanted to skip a workout or miss a race\u2014even if it’s raining or snowing. She’s always the first one on the water and the last one off\u2014and always with a smile.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Leibfarth will need to summon all of that passion in order to qualify for the fast-approaching Summer Games, which will carry a maximum of two women kayakers\u2014one in canoe slalom and one in kayak slalom\u2014to Tokyo 2020. Her world cup wins this summer earned her the U.S. qualifying spots in both canoe and kayak, meaning she could end up the country\u2019s only woman kayaker competing in both events.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But first Leibfarth needs to do well in the U.S. national team trials, which consist of two separate races at the Riversport Rapids Whitewater Course in Oklahoma City the first two weekends in May. If she places first or second in one of those races, she\u2019ll qualify for the Summer Games. She\u2019ll train for five weeks in Australia over the winter to prepare for the events.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel good,\u201d Leibfarth says, adding that she likes the whitewater course in Tokyo, which resembles the courses she trains on in the U.S. \u201cDoing well at the world cup events last summer definitely helps my chances leading into the team trial races, but anything can happen in whitewater. All I can do is focus on getting better.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evy Leibfarth still remembers her first kayak. She was 4, the boat was bright pink and she loved it. Now, 15-year-old Leibfarth is in a different craft\u2014one built for competitive slalom racing that she\u2019s used to burst onto the international kayaking scene. In 2018, still too young to enter professional competitions, she\u2019d already qualified for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":95134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[727,298,349,1542],"internal-tag":[],"class_list":["post-95125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paddle","tag-latest-posts","tag-north-carolina","tag-paddling","tag-south"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/paddle\/this-15-year-old-is-whitwater-kayakings-rising-star","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"This 15-Year-Old Is Whitewater Kayaking’s Rising Star","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/paddle\/this-15-year-old-is-whitwater-kayakings-rising-star","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/paddle\/this-15-year-old-is-whitwater-kayakings-rising-star"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/11\/ICF-medal.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/11\/ICF-medal.jpg?fit=6000%2C4000"},"articleSection":"Paddle","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jessica Bernhard"}],"creator":["Jessica Bernhard"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["latest posts","north carolina","paddling","south"],"dateCreated":"2019-11-12T23:39:32Z","datePublished":"2019-11-12T23:39:32Z","dateModified":"2019-11-19T00:26:28Z"},"rendered":"