Professional paddler Yale Steinepreis is a 26-year-old Australian Olympian. She is now qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
WAIS paddlers Yale Steinepreis have been selected for the Paris Olympics 2024
Lachlan Armstrong and Yale Steinepreis, who are paddlers from the Western Australian Institute of Sport (WAIS), have been chosen for the Senior World Cup and World Championship Team.
With only a few months remaining until the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Steinepreis has her sights set on making the team for her first appearance at the Olympics.
At the 2023 world championships held in Duisburg, Germany, while competing individually, Yale Steinepreis won a quota place (secured a spot) for the Paris Olympics. She won the silver medal in the final of the K1 200m event, finishing behind Lisa Carrington from New Zealand, who is a nine-time world champion.
“It was shocking, to be honest,” while talking about the team’s performance at the 2022 World Championships. “When we crossed the line, Ally Clarke and I just looked at each other and thought – what just happened?!”
She said
Yale Steinepreis’s grandma is her biggest Inspiration
Yale Steinepreis was born on November 19, 1997, in Fremantle, Western Australia, which is her hometown.
She has come a long way since she started paddling at the age of 16. She chose this sport because her grandma was very involved in kayaking when Steinepreis was growing up, and she used to go and watch her grandma do it. It was due to her grandma’s involvement that when Steinepreis was 16 years old, her grandma told her about a process to identify talented athletes, which eventually led Steinepreis into the path of sprint kayaking.
Currently, Steinepreis is following her higher education studies at Griffith University, located in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. She has also received an educational scholarship from the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to help her with her studies at Griffith University for the Juris Doctor degree.
This scholarship allows Steinepreis to chase her dreams of becoming both a lawyer and a competitor in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Realizing her passion
Steinepreis understood that paddling was her true passion when she was 16 years old and got the chance to travel around the world for her sport.
After being selected for the West Australian Institute of Sport (WAIS) and getting to practice every day with some of the athletes she looked up to in her sport, she began to feel there was a bigger reason or purpose for being involved in the sport.
Blooming of her Career
In 2016, she won the Oceania Championships in the 500m 4-seater kayak event for women, which was held on December 2, 2016.
Yale reached the final round of every event she took part in at both ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup competitions, which was a huge achievement for her first senior team campaign. Then at the 2022 ICF World Championships, Yale motivated her crew to finish second in the K4 500m event. This was Australia’s best result in more than a decade for that particular event. Back in her home country, Yale is an ambassador for the Olympics Unleashed program, where she visits primary and high school students to share her sporting journey and inspire the next generation.
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In her first year competing at the senior level for Australia, Yale won a silver medal in the K4 500m event at the Canoe Sprint World Championships held in Dartmouth, Canada, she competed alongside Ella Beere, Aly Bull, and Alexandra Clarke.
The last couple of seasons leading up to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games have been marked by amazing performances and international success for Yale Steinepreis, including winning a silver medal in the K1 200m event at the 2023 ICF Senior World Championships.
Yael Competition History
In 2015, at the Junior Flatwater World Championships, Steinepreis finished 8th in the 500m 4-seater kayak event for women. The following year in 2016, she won 1st place in the 500m 4-seater kayak at the Oceania Championships and 4th in the 200m 2-seater kayak.
In 2018, she had success at the Oceania Championships again, finishing 2nd in the 500m 4-seater and 5th in the 500m 2-seater, while also placing 8th in the 500m 4-seater at the Under-23 Flatwater World Championships.
2020 saw Steinepreis finish 4th in the 500m 2-seater, 2nd in the 500m 4-seater, and 3rd in the 200m 1-seater at the Oceania Championships. Her breakout year was 2022 – she had multiple top 5 finishes at World Cups, including 2nd in the 500m 4-seater and 5th in the 200m 2-seater at the Flatwater World Championships.
In 2023, leading up to the Paris Olympics, Steinepreis grabbed 2nd in the 500m mixed 2-seater at a World Cup, while also earning silver in the 200m 1-seater and finishing 5th in the 500m 4-seater at the Flatwater World Championships.
Yale Steinepreis International Results
At the 2017 ICF Under-23 World Championships held in Pitesti, Belarus, Steinepreis finished 10th in the 500m 4-seater kayak event and 13th in the 500m 2-seater kayak event.
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In 2016, at the National Championships in Champion Lakes, Western Australia, she earned 3rd place in the 200m 2-seater kayak, 7th place in the 500m 2-seater kayak, and 9th place in the 200m 1-seater kayak events. Going back to 2015, at the ICF Junior World Championships in Montemor-o-Velho, Portugal, Steinepreis finished 8th in the 500m 4-seater kayak competition.
