A Friendship Tests the Waters
Parsons, Heyl Battle For One Berth on U.S. Olympic Team

By Liz Clarke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 24, 2008

They have been friends for more than 15 years now, drawn together by a love of whitewater kayaking and bound by so many seasons of pushing one another in fitness and technique.

As teenagers both were named to the U.S. national kayak team. In their early 20s, they trained and lived alongside each other in Bethesda's Brookmont neighborhood, perched on a bluff overlooking the Potomac, which a close-knit community of world-class paddlers has called home since the 1980s. And in 2004 they were teammates on the U.S. Olympic team, awarded the country's two slots for single kayak at the Athens Games.

Scott Parsons, 29, and Brett Heyl, 26, are still the country's best in their discipline, K-1 (also known as single kayak), as the 2008 Beijing Games near. But their sport's international rules have changed, restricting each competing country to one boat per class. And the upshot has transformed a sport in which paddlers battle furious whitewater rapids into one in which, in this case, they battle their closest friend.

Both Parsons, who still lives in Bethesda, and Heyl downplay the mano-a-mano aspect that the new restriction has introduced to Olympic qualifying.

"One cool thing about our sport is, you're not really racing anybody," says Parsons, who finished sixth in Athens. "You can't do anything about anybody else; I can't guard [Heyl] while he's coming through the course. It's totally cliche, but if you just do your own thing and concentrate on your own race, hopefully it goes well."

Heyl, who moved to Charlotte in 2006 to be near the U.S. National Whitewater Center, says the fact that they both are battling for a sole Olympic spot has helped their friendship.

"This year, especially because of the competition between us for the one spot, it has actually relaxed our relationship," says Heyl, who has regarded Parsons as a role model since he was 10. "It's not really personal anymore. Whoever races better is going to win. There's almost a peacefulness to it; there's not the insecurity of, 'Oh, he's better!' I can admit that he's really good. I have no insecurity about that, whereas four or five years ago I could have really struggled with that."

There's a rationale behind the sport's one-boat limit, explains Silvan Poberaj, a former coach of the Slovenian national team who was named the U.S. national coach in 1993. It has to do with expanding the sport's appeal.

The world's best kayakers have traditionally come from Europe, particularly Germany, France, Slovakia and Hungary -- countries rich with paddling talent. If each were allowed more than one boat per class, there would be little opportunity for kayakers from other continents to contend for an Olympic medal. And there would be precious little incentive, in turn, to develop a pipeline of talent with future medals in mind.

Poberaj sees the wisdom, noting, "This sport still has to grow, especially in Africa, Asia and South America."

But he also sees the downside of the rule, especially when he considers the expertise and commitment of Parsons and Heyl, whom he has coached for several years.

"They both deserve to go," Poberaj says. "They are both good enough and ranked internationally high enough that they deserve to go. I think it's unfortunate."

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."