Leibfarth finishes second in women's kayak final
Evy Leibfarth becomes the first American woman to win a world championships medal in kayak slalom in 23 years, taking silver in Oklahoma City at the World Canoe Slalom Championships.
Video Transcript
Well, she's usually at the end of the race.
I was, I was thinking about it, so from the qualifiers to the finals, she, she's basically just picked up speed every, every time.
And speaking of picking up speed, Evy Leibfarth on her home waters here in Oklahoma City.
Let me tell you something, everybody.
Look at your TVs right now.
Make sure that you're tuned into this because this young lady has taken the paddling world by storm.
She's familiar with white water.
Gets caught up just a little bit in that foam pile, but nonetheless, she is coming out digging.
This is a scrappy young lady.
Yeah, she just has such a high stroke rate.
So aggressive, so powerful, and right now up on the split.
But Fox was so fast out of gate seven, so you really want to try to build a lead on Fox early because she gave up almost nothing on the bottom of the course.
And everybody wants to win that world championship, but I'm telling you what, this is a hometown or a home country girl that she wants this.
She is hungry for that world championship.
Yeah, just so much desire.
Just so aggressive.
I love watching her paddle because there's, there's only one speed.
It's on or off, and she is on right now.
That was a great move into gate 14, so very fast.
We'll see if she can pick up time on that split, but that was one of the better moves we've seen today, Ken.
Oh, got her boat a little bit sideways.
Probably more so than she want, but this plo- this spot right here has been tricky.
She got caught up on the eddy line just a little bit, so she didn't go as deep down into the eddy, but still got slowed down just a little bit.
Yeah, again, these tiny errors, but right now she is potentially looking at a podium, depending on if she can get this last move nailed down.
She did great in the qualifiers and the semis.
So a little bit of a hangup there, but nice.
Floats across that feature.
Able to stay off the poles.
She's gonna have to dig all the way to the finish line to make that top three, Ken.
Can she do it?
Let's see.
Evy out of the USA.
Is it enough?
Into second place right now.
She did.
Oh, she is so, so fired up.
Yes.
Congratulations to Evy.
I know she feels comfortable.
I'll tell you what, if you're gonna play second fiddle to anybody by just a margin of a second, it's gonna be Jessica Fox.
I know that I interviewed Evy, earlier in the week and talked to her, and she kept referencing Jessica, how, important it was for her to paddle with her and how much she inspired her as a young paddler and, and, that inspiration continues.
But I'll tell you what, Evy is gonna be inspiring a lot of young paddlers here in the US.
Ooh, and so this is unofficial because we watched that replay and, it was very close to a 50-second penalty.
Again, your entire head has to get through that gate, and that was right at about the chin level on gate three.
So the judges will have to sort that out.
So we can't be sure just yet.
We will keep you posted.
Evy, hometown, you get to take a silver medal home at your, US World Championships.
How does it feel to be sitting up here with two legends of the sport?
I mean, it's incredible to be here in front of, like, a home crowd and on my home course.
It's just crazy.
But to do it with Jess and Kim, I mean, these are two ladies that I've looked up to for my whole career, and I'm lucky enough to call them friends now.
But I'm just, like, at a loss for words.
The silver medalist, representing the United States of America, Evy Leibfarth.
