I recognize that look in her face as her torso pops out of the foam. She doesn’t use the nose plugs like most of her rivals, so she opens her mouth wide taking in as much air as she can before her body twists her purple kayak back around for another dunk in the Truckee River.

Nineteen-year-old Emily Jackson has the look of her father when she paddles freestyle, competing with the world’s best Saturday during the sixth annual Reno River Festival.

She’s little more than half the age of her rivals, and she’s doing some of the most aggressive whitewater freestyle tricks I’ve seen the past three years of shooting the action the festival offers. She’s the returning RRF women’s freestyle champ, and it appears she wants to keep the title.

New Zealander Nikki Kelly, a returning RRF top women’s competitor is struggling in comparison during the preliminary heats and won’t be competing in the championship runs. Australian Tanya Faux shows looks of frustration as well, and she’s the 2005, 2006, 2007 RRF women’s champ.

Jackson drops in for the final heat — which determines the competitors in the championship round — and goes all WMD.

The only one close to Jackson is Ruth Gordon, the current women’s world freestyle champion. Gordon, a Canadian, recently moved to Reno. The river festival adopted her, or she adopted the festival. Either way, it’s clear, she’s going to have to pull off some of her best paddling to beat the kid.

And just like that, Gordon, now practically the hometown girl, gets the amplitude she’s been looking for in her tricks.

Jackson, for once, doesn’t match the intensity.

And just like that, the returning champ surrenders her title.

— Words and photos by Keith Sheffield