Olympic Team Trials in Oklahoma City: Evy Leibfarth strives to qualify in 3 paddle sports
Evy Leibfarth arrived in Oklahoma City with one major goal accomplished.
While this weekend’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials at Riversport OKC are a make-or-break opportunity for some athletes, the 20-year-old from North Carolina knows she has qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
The mystery is the number of events in which she will compete.
“Knowing that she already has the spot takes a little bit of pressure off,” said Lee Leibfarth, her coach and father. “We still have to have our A-game even though she’s already booked her ticket to Paris.”
Evy Leibfarth had a dominant showing in canoe slalom two weekends ago at the Olympic Team Trials in Montgomery, Alabama. It’s impossible for any competitor in Oklahoma City to catch up with her score, so she has secured a spot in the Olympics.
This weekend, Leibfarth is competing in kayak slalom and kayak cross with aspirations of becoming the first American woman to represent her country in three paddling events. Heading into Saturday, she holds the lead in kayak slalom with a time of 94.67 seconds, but Ria Sribar is only 0.62 seconds behind.
Although Leibfarth has qualified for canoe slalom, she continued to participate in the event Friday while competitors gauged their progress against her.
“So much of canoe slalom is learning how to race and experience,” Leibfarth said. “When I was younger, people would tell me that, and I would be like, ‘Aw, no, it can’t matter that much.’ And now that I’ve been in the sport for (about) six years at the senior level, I’m like, ‘Oh, no, that makes sense.’”
Leibfarth gained crucial experience in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where she competed at age 17.
“A lot of the pressure that I put on myself and around the event just didn't really help me do my best,” Leibfarth said. “So going into Paris, I’m really excited to have a little bit more of an open mind and just trust in my training a little bit more.”
More: How 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials site Riversport OKC has grown into 'global destination'
Oklahoma wind adds challenge to canoe, kayak events
Striped slalom gates swung above the rushing rapids and swayed in the fierce morning wind.
It was a fitting Oklahoma greeting for Olympic hopefuls.
Liam Malakoff, an American Canoe Association volunteer, said artificial courses like Riversport have gained popularity because of the controlled factors that don’t exist at natural sites.
But no one could control the Oklahoma wind.
Gusts up to 35 mph whipped across the course, creating unpredictable conditions for paddlers. Athletes are penalized if they touch the slalom gates, so they had to take extreme caution as the gates swung toward them.
This required agile maneuvers.
“We call them little gymnastics moves, where you shift your body out to one side really fast,” Leibfarth said. “The best thing is just to center yourself enough in the first place, and it doesn’t matter if they move around a little bit.”
The conditions didn’t stop Zachary “Bug” Lokken from zooming through the channels. Lokken, from Durango, Colorado, concluded Friday’s events with a time of 87.58 seconds to lead the men in canoe slalom.
The wind also didn’t keep spectators from enjoying a spring day at Riversport. Fans dotted the grass with folding chairs, and elementary classes from Oklahoma City Public Schools gathered at the Olympic Experience Interactive Fan Zone.
How do U.S. Team Trials work?
The United States has earned quotas in women’s canoe slalom, women’s kayak slalom and men’s canoe slalom.
This means Team USA has qualified to compete in these events in Paris, but the team isn’t filled yet.
For each athlete, two of four runs from Montgomery will count along with two of four runs from Oklahoma City. Together, these factors determine who makes the cut.
On Friday in Oklahoma City, every athlete was allowed two attempts in each event, and only their better time counted. Saturday will follow the same format, and it will also feature trials for kayak cross, a new sport in which participants propel their kayaks into the water from a ramp 10 feet above the rapids.
The events are highly competitive. The United States has only one spot in women’s canoe slalom, and Leibfarth has filled it. The U.S. also has one representative in women’s kayak slalom and one in men’s canoe slalom, and those are yet to be determined.
In canoe/kayak slalom, the athlete with the fastest time wins, but it isn’t that simple. Penalties increase an athlete’s time, so hitting or even skimming a gate holds serious consequences.
Downstream gates are green and white, while upstream gates are red and white. Paddlers must perform tricky maneuvers to turn and properly pass through the upstream gates.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Olympic Trials in OKC: Evy Leibfarth strives to qualify in 3 sports
