Bethesda resident Fabien Lefevre on Saturday became the first U.S. national team member to win a gold medal in a whitewater slalom event in 12 years.
Lefevre, 32, ushered his canoe through rapids, whipped it around gates and sped to the finish line at the Maryland course in McHenry, near Deep Creek Lake, to best the field in the C-1 canoe class and claim his third individual world championship.
“Since I was a kid my dream was to be the best paddler in the world,” Lefevre said in an interview Tuesday.
It was a dream that began in Orleans, France, where Lefevre was born. He grew up in the French paddling system and worked his way onto the French national team. As a French paddler, he won world championships in 2002 and 2003 in the K-1 kayak class and earned a bronze at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and a silver in 2008 in Beijing as a kayaker.
In 2012, he moved to the United States and settled near Glen Echo in Bethesda to be near the Potomac River. Working part-time as a real estate agent, he started training with a local paddling group and practicing on the Potomac.
Lefevre said he’ll occasionally put his canoe or kayak in the water near the Old Angler’s Inn in Potomac, or he’ll walk up the gorge to “surf” Great Falls.
Riding Great Falls, which is known for its massive whitewater, after a heavy rainfall was “one of the first times I felt really, really small on the water,” he said.
Lefevre said relocating to a new country was difficult. He lost all of his sponsors, which had been supporting him financially, and he had to adapt to a new place.
After receiving his permanent residency card, he began to compete for the U.S. national team and immediately felt pressure to win.
“I had to succeed, I had to make a medal,” Lefevre said. “I made that promise to the U.S. team when they welcomed me two years ago. The [world championship] gold was the perfect gift I could give back for that welcoming. It’s a dream come true.”
At the International Canoe Federation world championship race last weekend, Lefevre qualified with the fastest time entering the final round in the canoe class. He said he was inspired by the crowd’s cheers as he prepared to make his final run.
“Ten seconds before racing, I heard the crowd cheering and I felt goosebumps on my arms and then it was like I was switching off my mental [thoughts] and I was led by my faith and the support of the crowd,” Lefevre said.
Lefevre came in second after navigating the course, in which paddlers must pass through set gates, similar to slalom skiing. However, he was awarded the gold medal after officials reviewed his run and removed a penalty that had been incorrectly assessed for hitting a gate.
“I was already very happy to be second, actually,” Lefevre said. “Then I was like, ‘Whoah.’ ”
Click to the 1:50 mark of the video below to see a portion of his run.
Adam Van Grack, the president of the Potomac Whitewater Racing Center, described Lefevre as a Michael Jordan-like figure in France, where paddling sports are extremely popular. He said his arrival on the U.S. team has raised the level of all of its members.
Lefevre says his next step will be to obtain full U.S. citizenship, which will allow him to compete for the U.S. team in the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. He said he needs to receive citizenship by September 2015 in order to enter the U.S. trials to get a spot on the team. Van Grack said this will likely require an act of Congress to be done in time.
If Lefevre makes the team, he’ll be looking to earn a gold medal. After more than a dozen years competing professionally, Lefevre hopes to continue competing as long as he can and says he doesn’t believe the sport is as dangerous as it appears.
“We make strokes on the water,” Lefevre said. “It’s more dangerous for me to go running in the forest and sprain my ankle than to go surfing on the Potomac when it’s flooded. Water is my element, it’s so natural to go paddling. I don’t think about it, I just do it.”