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Caroline Queen has grown tired of obvious statements. Yes, she is short; thank you for pointing that out. And yes, she is young; what an astute observation.

But so what if you can barely see her head over the top of her kayak as she hefts it on her shoulder to and from the water? So what if her mom has to drive her to practices because, although she can maneuver her raft through the traffic of rapids, she still is a year shy of qualifying to battle rapid traffic?

None of that prevented the 5-foot-2 native of Darnestown and student at Bullis from becoming, at age 15, the youngest member of the U.S. senior national kayak team. In fact, Queen said she believes her obvious traits, the ones others might view pejoratively, actually play out to her advantage. "My size allows me to stay in a lower-volume boat," she said. "My strength-to-boat-volume ratio is higher than most."

As for her youth, well, she is learning how to develop a perspective and work ethic that others in her sport do not pick up until their late teens. "To learn to paddle on whitewater, it's not just time in the water training," said Silvan Poberaj, the senior national team head coach since 1994. "You have to be in good shape, and it's not all the time you find that combination of skills in a person her age."

Queen showed off her fitness at the senior national team trials in Charlotte in April. Darting through green gates on her way downstream on her last run of the second day, Queen approached the final red gate. Unlike green gates that kayakers merely have to shoot through, red gates force kayakers to pass by, turn around and paddle through them while battling the current as they travel upstream.

On this particular red gate, Queen passed too far past the final red gate and had to scramble to fight her way into the eddy that tucked just behind the gate. Eddies negate the force of the current, and consequently, kayakers love eddies.

There are days when Queen times her turns perfectly, leaning back in her kayak, pushing the stern underwater, raising the bow up and pivoting her raft just as she passes the red gate. Those are the days she eases into the eddy before turning once more to resume her journey downstream.

But then there are days when Queen's timing is a bit off. After two stellar runs through the course on the first day and a decent first run on the next, Queen did not lean back quickly enough on that final red gate and had to face the current's fury in order to reach the eddy's saving grace.

Queen is "very small, and that's not usually good because she has less reach, but she makes up for it with her muscle and fitness," said Ashley Nee, 18, Queen's longtime training partner and close friend. "She is someone who doesn't let things bother her, and that helps her so much when it comes to racing. She does her own thing."

The previous year, she had worked on improving her skills around the upstream gates. She discovered the crucial importance of those red gates at the senior team trials in 2006. It was her first time at the trials, so she set "reachable" aspirations. Disappointing runs on the third day offset decent runs on the first two and kept her from making the team.

"I wouldn't have been ready for that team last year, so it's good that it didn't work out," Queen said. "I hadn't competed in Europe, and I didn't know what they would expect" on the international level. So she went to Europe, witnessed international competitions and saw firsthand the level of expectations placed on racers. A year later, "I was ready."

Chris Hipgrave had the same feeling. The high-performance director for USA Canoe/Kayak, Hipgrave has worked with Queen for the past 2 1/2 years and said she had the ability to perform what he called a "competition run" heading into this year's senior team trials. "To do that, you need to have a mentally prepared route, and you need to be able to adapt," Hipgrave said.

Mentally prepared route? Check. Queen visualizes each race before she gets into the water, viewing the 30-degree left turn here and then the 90-degree right turn there. Queen sees the race in stages and plans out how to get from one to the next. "It's about transitions," she said.

Ability to adapt? Heck, that is how she wound up in this sport to begin with. An avid lacrosse and field hockey player when she was younger, Queen took up kayaking only after the then-junior national team coach spotted her paddling one day and mistook her for someone on his team. In actuality, she was just a 9-year-old completing a daily activity for Valley Mill summer camp. The coach spoke with a camp instructor, who relayed the message to Queen.

Six years later, there is no mistaking Queen on a kayak. Her red helmet matches her raft, though the raft also has a gray and white racing stripe down the middle. The demonstrative way she weaves her paddle through the foaming rapids slapping together around her underlies the notion that "reach" is a relative term.

"You had to stop and think: This is a 15-year-old paddling at a senior level," Hipgrave said of his thoughts as Queen torqued her paddle furiously to reach the eddy at the senior team trials.

Finally, Queen made it through the red gate and into the eddy, and her finish earned her a spot on the senior national team. The youngest of five junior kayakers to make the team, Queen and the squad currently are touring Europe. They will compete in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany before returning to the United States for the national championships Aug. 1-4 in Deep Creek, Md. Trips to Beijing in mid-August for an Olympic venue test event and to Brazil in September of the senior world championships are also on tap.

But while everyone else talks about her age and size, Queen prefers to focus on the more practical aspects of her sport. Kayaking "causes you to be responsible for a lot of things -- your gear, your boat, your workouts," she said. "It's really a great sport to grow up with."

Obviously.