Kayaking
Read ahead for the top Evy Leibfarth career moments, from her signature move to her biggest international wins.
Canoe slalom athlete Evy Leibfarth hasn’t even celebrated her 21st birthday and she’s already achieved more than most do in a lifetime. As she’s traveled the world to tackle the most difficult whitewater courses, the most important thing to Leibfarth is the community she’s built. She explains to Red Bull how she goes from work to joy on the whitewater.
“I think that's always pretty joyful for me…getting the opportunity to travel to new places for training camps or for races,” she says. “And meeting so many other athletes, it's really inspiring to me and just helps me to see all of the amazing positive things that come from kayaking.”
That’s just the start of the positive influence kayaking has had on Leibfarth’s life thus far. With well over a dozen major first-place titles to her name and counting, Leibfarth is a pioneer in the world of competitive paddle sports. And just like when she’s in the water, nothing is going to slow her down anytime soon.
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Early career highlights
From cradle to kayak
The Bryson City, North Carolina native got her first taste of paddling when she was still a toddler. Her dad, Lee Leibfarth, who also happens to be a Team USA coach, used to take young Evy out on the water in his lap. The future kayak slalom prodigy loved being on the Class II river near her family home. By age 4, she had her own kayak — and ever since, she’s been on a mission to conquer faster waters.
Her dad became her coach when she entered the professional circuit at age 12. Her mom, paddling instructor Jean Folger, played a huge part in her training too, leading trips on the Nantahala River. You could say Leibfarth has been training on this river since before birth, as Folger used to paddle the Nantahala Outdoor Center while pregnant.
Early victories
As someone who races in both the kayak and canoe disciplines, Leibfarth has been a double threat ever since her days on the Junior Circuit. In 2016, the preteen earned her first U.S. National Championship in solo canoe slalom (C1) and landed fourth in solo kayak slalom (K1).
In 2017, Leibfarth dominated both disciplines at the U.S. Senior National Team Trials, where she took first place in K1 and second in C1. By 2018, the 14-year-old had collected so many wins that she’d earned the ranking of top female paddler in the country. And that was before she became the youngest person to win a World Cup medal.
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International success
2019 season
The year 2019 was quite a year for Leibfarth in the international competition circuit. The 15-year-old made her World Cup debut in Bratislava, Slovakia, the city home to Leibfarth’s favorite practice course. She’d go on to set the record for youngest World Cup medalist in Tacen, Slovenia, after she took third place in C1. Leibfarth told Red Bull it was an especially proud moment.
“I remember crying because it was so exciting,” she says.
That wouldn’t be her only time on a podium before she was old enough to get a driver’s license. At home, she took first place in both K1 and C1 at the U.S. National Championships and U.S. Senior National Team Trials. At the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, she finished first in K1 and second in extreme slalom, also known as kayak cross.
At the Junior/U23 World Championships in Krakow, Poland, Leibfarth took first place in extreme slalom and third place in K1. To top off a breakout year, she placed fourth in C1 at the World Championships in La Seu d’Urgell, Spain. She ended the year as a highly-decorated global champion, and she hadn’t even finished high school yet.
2021 and 2022 seasons
Like much of the world, the momentum of Leibfarth’s career came to a brief halt when the COVID-19 pandemic canceled several global competitions in 2020. However, Leibfarth came roaring back in full force the following year.
In 2021, Leibfarth returned to the World Cup and to Bratislava for the World Championships that year, earning a bronze medal in kayak cross. She also won first place in K1 and C1 in the U.S. Team trials. She would follow that up in 2022 with six more first-place wins at home and abroad. This included another extreme slalom win at the ICF Junior/U23 World Championships in Italy and K1 and C1 gold medals at the Pan American Championships. As her competitive spirit drives her toward more international podiums, the young star remains motivated with each race.
“I’m a very competitive person,” she says. “I love the adrenaline in the start gate, and I love pushing myself to be my best.”
2024
Leibfarth competed on the world stage in 2024 and became an Olympic bronze medalist in the women's canoe slalom event.
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Signature move in action
A huge part of what makes Leibfarth such a fierce competitor is her signature move, the ultra-fast hummingbird stroke. This quick stroke demonstrates Leibfarth’s incredible edge control, which gives her a huge advantage on the most technical courses. Leibfarth explained to Red Bull that to train like a pro, it’s important to remember those fine-tuned skills even when paddling the most challenging courses.
“While we do paddle difficult whitewater sections, so much of it is technique,” she says.
This approach has paid off throughout her career. For example, Leibfarth placed second in her slalom debut at the Green River Narrows Race — not an easy course for a first-timer. Recently, her surgeon-like precision was on display at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, where she won first place in the K1 finals. Like the bird her signature move was named after, Leibfarth zooms through the whitewater with extreme agility and speed.
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Achievements out of the water
When Leibfarth isn’t paddling on whitewater six days a week, she turns her attention toward studying to become a doctor, a career largely inspired by paddling. While watching a race at Nantahala Outdoor Center, young Leibfarth tripped and hit her head. One of the competitors, who also happened to be a physician, rushed to make sure she was okay. She explains how the experience had a lasting impact.
“He was a doctor and I called him the kayak doctor and I thought he was the coolest person ever,” she says. As the “kayak doctor” helped Leibfarth, she wanted to pay it forward. From that moment on, she was determined to help her fellow paddlers in the same way.
“To be very connected to the athletes, that makes me more motivated to go to school so that I can be something like that one day,” she says.
As if all of that wasn’t enough for the young star, Leibfarth is also a skilled artist. When she’s decompressing between races, you can often find Leibfarth creating art with a pencil or paintbrush. At this point, it’s hard to find any discipline, athletic or otherwise, that Leibfarth can’t conquer.
Growing the slalom discipline one race at a time
From the records she’s set to her international wins, it would be an understatement to call Leibfarth an overachiever. So now, what’s left for Leibfarth to master? For starters, she’s not done proving herself on the international stage just yet. Mostly, though, she hopes to inspire other women to pick up a paddle. With every event from which she emerges victorious, the more she gets motivated to invite other people into the sport that’s brought her so much.