Two weekends ago, junior Andrew Peterman took first place in the American River Festival National Tournament for Slalom Whitewater Kayaking. This, however, is only a small victory for the civil engineering major and former third-place winner in the Czech Republic Junior World Cup.

"A firecracker personality" both on-and-off the water, according to his friend Jacob Gomez, a junior, Peterman has been kayaking pretty much all his life.

"I started kayaking when I was about nine years old," Peterman said. "I'm from Idaho and my family took a kayak lesson on the Payette River. From there I joined a kids club in Boise and started competing in whitewater slalom kayak races around the Northwest."

Later, Peterman's kayaking took on a more competitive edge.

"In high school, I realized I wanted to continue racing at a national and international level so I enrolled in the Academy at Adventure Quest," he said. "The Academy, no longer in existence, was a traveling high school for competitive kayak training and competition. We traveled during the winter to South and Central America, New Zealand, Australia, etc., so we could continue to train in the winter months."

Through the team, he was able to compete in major international tournaments.

"For the last two years of high school I also competed as a member of the U.S. Junior National Kayak team in the Junior World Championships and Junior World Cup events in Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland and the Czech Republic," he said. "I earned a bronze medal at the Junior World Cup in Roudnice, Czech Republic, and I placed in the top 20 at the 2000 Olympic Team Trials."

Nowadays, Peterman is taking a break from the competitive circuit and is involved with the Stanford Kayak Club.

"Since I've been at Stanford, I've been in semi-retirement," he said. "I train frequently, however I made a decision to focus on school rather than continue competing at the national/international level."

According to his friend Rolf Steier, a junior, this was an impressive decision for Peterman to make.

"I know Andrew made a conscious decision to put his kayaking career on hold in coming to Stanford," Steier said. "He was definitely big-time, but even though he hasn't been racing consistently, I know he’s still involved in the national and international kayaking community."

Steier recalled an incident when one of Peterman's old kayaking friends came to visit.

"I remember last year when a buddy of his, Tilo, from the German national team came to visit for a week," he said. "They both talked in this weird kayak-vernacular to each other, and they definitely wouldn’t sugarcoat it for me."

Peterman got the chance to return to the kayaking scene by deciding to participate in the non-profit American River Festival.

"I decided to compete in the festival because it is fairly close by and would give me a good opportunity to see some old friends from the sport," he said. "I take all racing fairly seriously, but the pressure wasn't too high."

Though in existence since 1981, the American River Festival became a non-profit fundraiser for the first time this year with proceeds from the event going to American Whitewater, the American Canoe Association, Friends of the River and the American River Conservancy — all four of which promote river conservation.

The American River is located two hours away from San Francisco and goes down the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The south fork of the river, where the race took place, is a 20-mile stretch featuring difficult class III rapids.

Peterman competed in the whitewater slalom race, which was one of the featured events along with whitewater rodeo and wildwater race.

"Whitewater slalom kayaking is where a kayaker must negotiate down a whitewater course through a series of about 20 gates," Peterman explained. "Some of the gates you must pass through going downstream, while others must be negotiated in the opposite direction going upstream."

"Typically, the courses are set on the more difficult sections of whitewater on a river to provide the spectators with excitement as well as challenge the racers. You take two runs down the course and the times are combined. Hitting the gates results in a two second penalty and missing the gates results in a 50 second penalty."

Though this was Peterman's first race in a while, his win was certainly not out of place considering his experience.

"I wasn't surprised to win the race," he said. "I've been out of the racing scene for a few years, but I've retained a lot of fitness as well as technique through training around the area."

He added, however, "I was a little rusty on my first run down the course. After my first run I was only up on the competition by about a half a second."

Peterman took an opportunity after his first run to figure out ways to improve his time for his second run.

"Between my first and second runs I studied the course a bit more. I found specific places on the course I knew I could make up time," Peterman said. "My second run was a lot smoother. I ended up winning by seven or eight seconds, with my friend Rusty in second place."

Although Peterman has accomplished many things in the kayaking world, he is not one to boast.

"Andrew has been very humble about his accomplishments," Steier said. "I only really find out about them when he’s telling stories about his travels to places like Chile and New Zealand."

In these stories, however, Steier explained that Peterman simply included his victories as "footnotes in tales of his travels."

Steier hopes this doesn't change with his recent victory at the festival.

"I hope he won't big-time me, just because he won," he joked.

Peterman, however, is already looking ahead to his future kayaking plans.

His one main goal?

"To win," he said.