Evi Leibfurth qualified for the Paris Games in the first event of the U.S. Olympic Canoe Trials.
She hopes to compete two more times and become the first American woman in the sport to compete in three events in one event.
Liebfurth, a 20-year-old from North Carolina, will qualify for the canoe slalom event at Sunday's trials at Montgomery Whitewater Park in Alabama, making her second Olympic appearance, organizers said. .
She hopes to earn spots in the other two Olympic slalom events, kayak slalom and the new Olympic event kayak cross. The second and final stage of the Olympic Trials will be held Friday and Saturday in Oklahoma City and will be broadcast live. peacock Starts daily at 10 a.m. ET.
In Kayak Cross, multiple athletes compete by being dropped from a platform into the water at the same time, similar to Snowboard Cross at the Winter Games.
According to OlyMADMen, the only American men to compete in three canoe or kayak events in one event were Ernie Riedel in 1936 and Tony Ralphs in 1964.
There were no three sprint events for women until 1984. In slalom, this will be the first time his third event will be held in Paris, after his second event was held in Tokyo for the first time.
Leibfert finished 12th and 18th in the kayak and canoe slalom races in Tokyo, respectively, as the only teenager in both events.
Evi Leibfurth hones her skills on the rivers of North Carolina as she looks to break away from Europe's dominance in Olympic competition.
She was one of the few athletes whose families attended the Olympics without ticketed spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That's because her father, Lee, also serves as her coach. Although Lee was a national team athlete, she missed the 1996 Olympic team by about two seconds, she said.
A month after the Tokyo Games, Leibfert won her first medal at the Senior World Championships, a bronze medal in kayak cross.
Last August, she won the world junior title in kayak slalom and a bronze medal in canoe slalom. At the Senior World Championships in September, she achieved her best result of 7th place out of 3 events.
The last time the United States won a medal in slalom at the Olympics was in 2004 (Rebecca Giddens' silver medal in kayaking).
The 2024 U.S. Olympic Team roster will be updated as they qualify.
