Evy Leibfarth’s paddling journey started when she was four years old, sitting on the lap of her father, Lee, as they kayaked on the Nantahala River.
Sixteen years later, Leibfarth is headed to Paris for her second Olympic Games, living her dreams and making history along the way.
“We all have the opportunity to make our mark during these Games and show the sport to the world,” Leibfarth said. “I think it’s a really exciting sport, and I hope it gets more eyes on kayaking.”
Leibfarth’s Olympic journey starts on July 27 in the kayak slalom before she competes in the canoe slalom, which begins on July 31.
When she takes to the whitewater on Aug. 2 to compete in the kayak cross, where multiple paddlers are dropped into the water to race against each other, Leibfarth will become the first American woman to compete in the event, which is new to the Olympics in Paris. She’ll also become the first American woman to compete in three paddling events at one Olympics.
Leibfarth, who lives in Bryson City, has been in Paris for nearly two months, training on the whitewater course she’ll compete on during the Games.
Before she could even drive, Leibfarth blasted onto the kayaking scene. She made her first international appearance at 15 years old and is already a three-time world champion and two-time Pan American Games gold medalist. At just 17 years of age, Leibfarth made the Olympic team despite having just a year of senior experience under her belt.
To her, the whole experience in Tokyo felt quick, but now she’s had an extra three years to prepare for Paris.
Since Tokyo, where she finished 12th in the kayak slalom and 18th in the canoe slalom, Leibfarth has been working to get stronger in preparation for the 2024 Games. She’s also worked on the mental side of the sport, meeting with a sports psychologist to talk through distractions and fears ahead of racing.
“I’ve spent the last three years really working towards this, getting so much more experience,” Leibfarth said. “I just have a much better headspace going into it because I’ve learned how to deal with the stress around racing.”
In her preparation, Leibfarth’s biggest believer has been her coach – her dad, Lee, a former paddler himself, who has been pushing Evy towards her Olympic dreams since she was 8 years old.
“This is a sport that I was certainly very passionate about, and even at an early age Evy decided it was something she wanted to do,” Lee Leibfarth said when Evy qualified for the Olympics in April.
While they had to learn to balance Coach vs. Dad when Evy was younger, she’s now grateful to have someone she trusts so much giving her advice, while Lee is glad he gets to celebrate these moments alongside his daughter.
“It’s been a pretty amazing journey for me to have her sitting in my lap in a kayak going down some easy water in Western North Carolina to now being on the largest stage imaginable in the Olympics,” Lee said.
Leibfarth is looking forward to the parts of her second Olympics the first didn’t include. Her mom will be in Paris to watch her compete after being unable to travel to Tokyo due to COVID-19 restrictions, joining Lee.
She’ll also have fans cheering for her and Team USA at the Opening Ceremony on July 26. In Tokyo, Leibfarth remembers the silence as they walked into Olympic Stadium, which was different than the vision she had of the crowd’s energy.
Though the crowd is back in Paris, it still won’t be quite what Leibfarth imagined. Instead, athletes will ride boats down the Seine, fans surrounding either side of Paris’s famed river, as part of the first Opening Ceremony to take place outside of a stadium.
“I think I’ll really let myself have the, ‘Oh my God, I’m at the Olympics’ moment at the opening ceremony,” Leibfarth said.
Evan Gerike is the high school sports reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Email him at egerike@citizentimes.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @EvanGerike. Please support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
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