A Friendship Tests the Waters

Parsons and Heyl aren't the only two paddlers vying for the lone K-1 slot. But they are the front-runners on the eve of the U.S. Olympic team trials, which will be held in Charlotte tomorrow through Sunday. That event is the second of three that will produce the country's Beijing-bound Olympian.

Parsons fared best in the first event, finishing seventh at the world championships last September in Brazil. Heyl finished 37th after being assessed a 50-second penalty for missing a gate in his semifinal run.

The top three finishers at the trials earn the right to compete at the season's final World Cup race in Augsburg, Germany, in early July. After that event, the American with the most points in those three races will be awarded the Olympic berth.

Like so many sports, whitewater kayaking demands endless hours of training and preparation yet has an element of unpredictability that heightens the drama of each competitive run. It's a dangerous sport, too, in which the water can churn in devilish ways.

Paddlers race against the clock as they negotiate a series of gates down a channel of rushing, churning rapids, waves and currents. They compete one at a time, and only the time of the run matters -- not artistry or grace. But they can be assessed penalties, in the form of extra seconds added to their time, for touching one of the gate poles with their body, boat or paddle or for missing a gate entirely.

Parsons has been padding since childhood, growing up in a family of paddlers in Sylvania, Ohio. Kayaking wasn't an Olympic sport then (its medal status was reinstated in 1992), and he pursued it for sheer love.

"I'll be the first to admit, he was the God of kayaking -- he was the golden child," gushes Heyl, who moved to Bethesda from Vermont after high school to train alongside Parsons and study at George Washington. "I was really chasing him, trying to catch up and emulate certain things."

They trained together on the Potomac for four years under Poberaj's tutelage. And while Heyl moved away, now splitting his training between Charlotte and Australia, where several of the world's elite paddlers congregate from January through March, Parsons has stayed in Bethesda. That's where Poberaj is based. And he also works as a prosthetics technician for a company that makes artificial limbs for returning soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"One of the best parts is getting to meet the kids I'm making the things for," Parsons says. "They're young and so motivated. Making something that fits and feels good and helps them get back on their feet, it's humbling."

Yet even though they're hundreds of miles apart, Parsons and Heyl are as attached as ever. They share the same training plan and know precisely what the other is doing on any given day.

"I know that when I take a day off of training, he's not," Heyl says. "He doesn't have to be there for me. He pushes me to try to get that little bit of an edge even if he's eight hours away."

Says Parsons: "Brett and I are pretty good about not making it personal. There's really nothing you can do to control anything other than your own performance. Everybody knows that, and it keeps attitudes and emotions in check."