Greenville kayaker is going for world title

To gasps, cheers and in some cases howls of horror from an afternoon crowd on Liberty Bridge, Adriene Levknecht and her paddling buddy Corey Volt paddled over the boulders and barely-there whitewater of the Class V Reedy River Falls.

Plunging with a safe smack into the pool below the falls, the two were quick to tell others this is not for the amateur. But running over waterfalls, as well as down some of the steepest, frothiest, most treacherous whitewater around the world is all in a day's work for Levknecht, 27.

Saving lives by day as a Greenville County EMS paramedic, Levknecht seems to be tempting fate with her own life as an extreme kayaker. But as one of the top female kayakers in the world, she knows what she's doing.

Levknecht leaves Greenville this weekend for the summer in preparation for the ICF Freestyle Kayak World Championships Aug. 30-Sept. 5 on the Ottawa River in Canada. She earned bronze in the K1 women's class at the 2013 World Championships on the Nantahala River in Western North Carolina. But with two more years of training, physical and mental preparation and countless hours on the water, Levknecht is planning to come home this time with the gold.

Those who know the extreme kayaker say they believe she has the grit and guts to become the World Champion.

"She's very driven. She's like a little pit bull. Once she sinks her teeth into it, she's not going to let go until she's the best," said Volt, 32, a former professional kayaker who has known Levknecht for 15 years. Volt will be the emcee at the 2015 Freestyle World Championships in Canada.

"She's naturally talented, but that will only take you so far unless you're willing to push it, and she does," he said. "It shows in her performances. In 2013 at the Nantahala, she was the underdog. She blew everybody's minds by coming and taking third, and this year, she's the top lady in the U.S."

Levknecht earned title of "top kayaking lady" at the U.S. Team Trials in June in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The freestyle competition determined the women who will compete on the World stage. In addition to Levknecht, included will be Emily Jackson and Jesse Stone.

University of North Carolina-Asheville student Rowan Stuart, 19, who won the junior women's K1 category at the 2013 World Championships, also gets a seat on the team for that accomplishment.

Levknecht's boyfriend of five years, Snowy Roberston, a former Welsh and British kayaking team member who works for Dagger Kayaks, said he is confident Levknecht will achieve her goal.

"Once she sets her mind to doing something, she pretty much sets a goal and goes for it. Not much, if anything, stands in her way," Robertson said. "She's a very quick learner in the paddlesports world. She was very good at creek racing, and freestyle wasn't her chosen specialist area, but she picked up on the necessary skills to make the national team. To go as far as she has without any professional coaching is incredible in itself – it shows her determination."

What is freestyle?

A tiny, 5-foot-2 bundle of muscles and shatterproof mental focus, Levknecht has been known internationally for years for her downriver, or extreme kayak racing skills. She is a six-time winner of the notorious Green River Narrows Race, held each November on a series of Class V waterfalls and rapids on the Green River in Saluda, North Carolina. She was named the Canoe and Kayak Female Paddler of the Year and is nominated again this year. Online voters make the call.

Her nomination reads: "With another win in 2014, the six-time Green Race Champion proved, yet again, that she is the fastest woman on the Green. She is definitely not, however, a one-trick pony. Adriene consistently impresses us with her freestyle chops as well. Perhaps most impressive, however, is Adriene's work as an ambassador for First Descents."

But freestyle kayaking is a whole different world than downriver. Sometimes called "rodeo kayaking" or "playboating," freestyle is sort of like gymnastics on the river.

Freestyle boats are only about six feet long, shorter than slalom or downriver kayaks, and have a lot of volume to allow them to "catch big air." Kayakers perform a series tricks, spins, turns and flips within a man-made whitewater feature.

Scoring is based on skill and showmanship rather than speed.

Freestyle kayaking is not yet an Olympic Sport, but the World Championships, held every two years, are the equivalent of the Olympics for the discipline.

Whitewater dreams since childhood

Levknecht grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and started sea kayaking with her parents at age 5. At age 11, she came to the Nantahala Outdoor Center near Bryson City, North Carolina, to take a kids' whitewater kayaking clinic. She returned five summers in a row. At age 18, she decided to move to Asheville.

"My dream was to be a pro kayaker. I didn't have any goals, but I knew Asheville was the place to be, and I already had a good group of people who supported me," she said.

She earned a two-year degree in emergency medicine from Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and works part-time with the Greenville County EMS helping to fix everything "from a stubbed toe to a heart attack," she said.

And when she's not working 12-hour shifts as a paramedic, Lenvknecht is kayaking on the Green River in Saluda. She raced the Green River for the first time in 2006, among more than 100 kayakers, but only a handful of women. She bit through her lip paddling through "Gorilla," the most notorious waterfall in the race, and needed to get stitches. But she was so enthralled with the adrenaline rush, she came back each year since, and won it six times.

All the while training for the Green and downriver races, Levknecht said she was always into freestyle, just watching others and replicating their flips and twists on her own. She competed in the 2008 World Cup in Europe and has been on the U.S. Freestyle Team for three years. "I always told people it was my best-kept secret."

And she does it all without a coach.

"You have to be driven. It's all about time on the water. It's different than racing, where you can get fit on land and then go race. Freestyle is technical – you need to know how to do the moves. I video myself. I can't afford a coach, and nobody's offered who would be qualified to coach me," she said.

To train off-water, she mountain bikes and practices at Zanti Power Yoga in Greenville. When traveling, she spends about five hours a day on the water, doing timed workouts or working on moves on a wave.

This past spring, she spent six weeks in Uganda training with world-class coaches and athletes on the White Nile River, but other than that, she hasn't had a formal coach.

"It takes a lot of training and a lot of will-power and it means you have to turn your brain off and tell your brain it's not bad," she said.

Battling back from tragedy

But she does know, tragically, that bad things can happen. Two years ago, she lost a dear friend, Shannon Christy, 24, in a kayaking accident on the Potomac River in Washington D.C. Christy had just graduated from Western Carolina University and had taken a job at Confluence Watersports in Greenville. She was preparing for her first extreme race, known as "The Great Falls."

"It was on the Thursday before race, July 11, 2013. I was supposed to be there, but I was at NOC training for Worlds. She had dinner with us in Greenville two days before, and that was last time I saw her," Levknecht said.

"She got separated from her kayak at some point and wound up in a pile of rocks. The Potomac is an old riverbed and the rocks are really soft. She got pulled into a sieve spot. Water is pretty powerful," Levknecht said.

The tragedy crushed Levknecht, who said it made her train even harder for the World Championships in honor of her friend. But after that, she said she felt like she hated kayaking and was struggling with whether to continue competing. She and some friends started the Shannon Christy Memorial Fund to help underprivileged girls and women get outdoors.

"The thing that has brought me out of my funk is my work with First Descents. It's brought a whole new strength and perspective to a lot of us," she said.

First Descents is a nonprofit that teaches cancer survivors ages 18-39 years old to kayak, rock climb or surf in free, weeklong clinics. Levknecht is a First Descents team leader and teaches kayaking clinics on the Nantahala River and across the country.

"They have been through hell and back and are scared as hell. They're ready to do something for themselves," she said. "They're not worried about next CT scan or blood test. They're ready to see the world in a whole new light, and not as a cancer patient. At the end of the clinic there is a rapid that everyone runs alone. It's like walking across the stage at graduation."

Levknecht's mother, Laurie Levknecht, will be attending the World Championships to cheer on her daughter, as she has done since Adriene was a child.

"She was intense as a kid – it's part of what makes her fun to be around. She was a swimmer, a gymnast, and did water polo and swimming in high school and was always outside and active. She's a person with a lot of energy and needs to focus that energy," Laurie said.

She believes her daughter's two intensely stressful jobs, as a paramedic and a professional kayaker, suit Adriene perfectly.

"I am very proud of her kayaking. But I am as proud when I hear people say what she's like as a person – she's a contributor, a part of the community of life. Her work with First Descents means as much as any of her competition. I'm proud of the person she's become and the one she will continue to be," the proud mother said.

"She's a person who shows up in life."

Vote for Adriene

Greenville County paramedic and professional kayaker Adriene Levknecht has been nominated at female paddler of the year by Canoe & Kayak magazine. Vote for her online at http://tinyurl.com/obunw45.