Adriene Levknecht
Age: 23 | Saluda, North Carolina
Known For: Green Race dominance and freestyle chops.
This Year: Set a course record en route to her fifth Green Race title, capped that with a win at the Buena Vista Pro Rodeo.
What’s Next: Lowering the Green Race record, competing in the Whitewater Grand Prix in Chile
Adriene Levknecht charges. In addition to her serial dominance of the Green River Narrows Race (she broke her own record last year), she just graduated college and got a job as a paramedic.This May she showed off her versatility with a victory in the Buena Vista Pro Rodeo, her first pro freestyle win. All this during what she calls a “low-motivation” year. If you want to see what she does when she’s fired up, just keep watching. After taking a “slightly devastating loss” in the 2012 Teva Games Steep Creek Championships—an event she won handily in 2011—Levknecht says her competitive spark is back. “I just have a fire to run Class V, and a fire to get other women to run Class V,” she says.
Age: 23 | Saluda, North Carolina
Known For: Green Race dominance and freestyle chops.
This Year: Set a course record en route to her fifth Green Race title, capped that with a win at the Buena Vista Pro Rodeo.
What’s Next: Lowering the Green Race record, competing in the Whitewater Grand Prix in Chile
Adriene Levknecht charges. In addition to her serial dominance of the Green River Narrows Race (she broke her own record last year), she just graduated college and got a job as a paramedic.This May she showed off her versatility with a victory in the Buena Vista Pro Rodeo, her first pro freestyle win. All this during what she calls a “low-motivation” year. If you want to see what she does when she’s fired up, just keep watching. After taking a “slightly devastating loss” in the 2012 Teva Games Steep Creek Championships—an event she won handily in 2011—Levknecht says her competitive spark is back. “I just have a fire to run Class V, and a fire to get other women to run Class V,” she says.
More on Adriene: Team LiquidLogic Profile
Emily Jackson
Age: 22 | Rock Island, Tenn., "or wherever my van is parked."
Known For: Back-to-back world freestyle championships, and finishing in the top three in every rodeo she’s entered since 2006
This Year: Made the slalom team at U.S. Olympic Trials, and won the U.S. Freestyle Point Series
What’s Next: Competing with the world’s best in both slalom and freestyle
Get this out of the way first: Kayaking greatness runs in Emily Jackson’s family. Her husband Nick Troutman and brother Dane both own world titles, and her father Eric is a four-time freestyle world champion, Olympic slalom racer, and founder of Jackson Kayak. Emily grew up on the rodeo circuit and has been among the world’s best freestyle kayakers since her early teens. This year she switched focus to slalom long enough to place third in the U.S. Olympic trials and to compete on the slalom world cup tour. Though she narrowly missed the Olympic team, she showed that kayaking excellence—and the stoke of competition—knows no boundaries.
Age: 22 | Rock Island, Tenn., "or wherever my van is parked."
Known For: Back-to-back world freestyle championships, and finishing in the top three in every rodeo she’s entered since 2006
This Year: Made the slalom team at U.S. Olympic Trials, and won the U.S. Freestyle Point Series
What’s Next: Competing with the world’s best in both slalom and freestyle
Get this out of the way first: Kayaking greatness runs in Emily Jackson’s family. Her husband Nick Troutman and brother Dane both own world titles, and her father Eric is a four-time freestyle world champion, Olympic slalom racer, and founder of Jackson Kayak. Emily grew up on the rodeo circuit and has been among the world’s best freestyle kayakers since her early teens. This year she switched focus to slalom long enough to place third in the U.S. Olympic trials and to compete on the slalom world cup tour. Though she narrowly missed the Olympic team, she showed that kayaking excellence—and the stoke of competition—knows no boundaries.
More on Emily: The Jackson Family Goes to Olympics
Freya Hoffmeister
Age: 48 | Husum, North Germany
Known For: Paddling solo around Australia
This Year: Paddling solo around South America
What’s Next: Two more years of the South American epic
Freya Hoffmeister has chosen a particularly difficult way to make a name for herself. She paddles around continents, alone. Her 332-day circumnavigation of Australia in 2009 was rightfully celebrated as one of the great sea kayak expeditions in history, yet it was just a warmup for her current project: paddling 15,000 miles around South America. Naturally, she’s going alone. She started paddling in August 2011, and rounded Cape Horn on New Year’s Day, 2012, after spending five days on a rocky beach, pinned down by persistent gales and heaving seas. She completed the eight-month, 5,000-mile first leg of her journey in May 2012—right on schedule. She plans two more years and 10,000 more miles, with a finish scripted for her 50th birthday on May 10, 2014.
Age: 48 | Husum, North Germany
Known For: Paddling solo around Australia
This Year: Paddling solo around South America
What’s Next: Two more years of the South American epic
Freya Hoffmeister has chosen a particularly difficult way to make a name for herself. She paddles around continents, alone. Her 332-day circumnavigation of Australia in 2009 was rightfully celebrated as one of the great sea kayak expeditions in history, yet it was just a warmup for her current project: paddling 15,000 miles around South America. Naturally, she’s going alone. She started paddling in August 2011, and rounded Cape Horn on New Year’s Day, 2012, after spending five days on a rocky beach, pinned down by persistent gales and heaving seas. She completed the eight-month, 5,000-mile first leg of her journey in May 2012—right on schedule. She plans two more years and 10,000 more miles, with a finish scripted for her 50th birthday on May 10, 2014.
More on Freya: Fearless | Lonely at the Top
Justine Curgenven
Age: 38 | Mynydd Llandegai, North Wales
Known For: Big sea-paddling expeditions in Kamchatka, Japan, Tasmania, and the award-winning video series "This is the Sea."
This Year: Completed the first sea kayak circumnavigation of Tierra del Fuego, kayaked from Russia to Japan with round-the-world adventurer Sarah Outen, and released “This Is the Roll,” her first instructional film.
What’s Next: Launch “This Is the Sea 5″
Justine Curgenven managed to do what many of us only dream of doing: turning our passion into our living. Case in point: Next March, she’ll release “This Is the Sea 5,” the latest in a series of movies that follow paddling expeditions to some of the most beautiful and remote areas on Earth. And she’s no slouch in the boat herself. This year, Curgenven and Barry Shaw became the first team to paddle the entire coastline of Isla Grande, Tierra del Fuego, on the windswept tip of South America. She also guided her friend Sarah Outen on two challenging kayak crossings—from England to France and later from Russia to Japan—as part of Outen’s audacious plan to kayak, cycle and row around the world.
Age: 38 | Mynydd Llandegai, North Wales
Known For: Big sea-paddling expeditions in Kamchatka, Japan, Tasmania, and the award-winning video series "This is the Sea."
This Year: Completed the first sea kayak circumnavigation of Tierra del Fuego, kayaked from Russia to Japan with round-the-world adventurer Sarah Outen, and released “This Is the Roll,” her first instructional film.
What’s Next: Launch “This Is the Sea 5″
Justine Curgenven managed to do what many of us only dream of doing: turning our passion into our living. Case in point: Next March, she’ll release “This Is the Sea 5,” the latest in a series of movies that follow paddling expeditions to some of the most beautiful and remote areas on Earth. And she’s no slouch in the boat herself. This year, Curgenven and Barry Shaw became the first team to paddle the entire coastline of Isla Grande, Tierra del Fuego, on the windswept tip of South America. She also guided her friend Sarah Outen on two challenging kayak crossings—from England to France and later from Russia to Japan—as part of Outen’s audacious plan to kayak, cycle and row around the world.
More on Justine: From Russia With Love
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