Rowers Set Sights on Summer Olympics

Could you spend an entire year focused on one thing and one thing only? Could you endure months of three-a-day practices and fierce competition, knowing that there’s a chance it could all be for nothing?

For four recent members of the Radcliffe crew team, this year has been about one thing: fighting for a spot in one of the U.S. boats headed to the 2008 Olympics.

Michelle Guerette ’02, Caryn Davies ’05, Nicky Gavel ’06, and rising senior Esther Lofgren are among the women who have been invited to train with the national team in Princeton, N.J. in preparation for the Beijing Games in August.

“We row two or three times a day and that’s pretty much all we do,” Davies says. “It’s full commitment.”

Davies is no stranger to international competition. She’s been the stroke of the national eight for the last two years, leading the boat to a world record at last year’s World Championships. She was also part of the silver-medal-winning eight in Athens in 2004.

The seasoned veteran is finding the grueling Olympic tryout process mentally easier the second time around.

“It helps to know what to expect, just how stressful it will be, how crazy it will get,” Davies admits. “I’m trying to take things as they come and do my best.”

Davies has had to deal with a torn ligament in her knee that has limited her training over the last month.

“It’s getting better,” she says. “I’m doing everything I can, and I feel good about this year.”

She also recently switched from the starboard side of the boat, where she has been rowing for her entire career, to port.

“[Davies] is an amazing rower,” Lofgren says. “She’s sculled and rowed starboard and now she’s still doing really well. She’s still in the mix.”

“She’s obviously one with a pretty impressive history of success on the national team,” Crimson coach Liz O’Leary adds.

Guerette, the only member of the Radcliffe contingent who has officially qualified for the Beijing Games, also has one Olympic competition under her belt. She was a member of the quadruple scull boat that placed fifth in Athens.

However, Guerette made the switch to the single sculling event, where she races as an individual, after the Athens Games. She has been competing on the international circuit for years in the single scull, taking home bronze at the 2005 and 2007 World Championships.

“What Caryn has accomplished as a rower, Michelle has accomplished as a single sculler,” O’Leary says.

Guerette’s success is even more impressive considering the climate of U.S. rowing today.

“The U.S. is not known for a history of single sculling,” O’Leary explains. Because American colleges row sweep-style, with each rower in charge of one oar, it wasn’t until after college that Guerette started competing in the two-oared sculling events.

“[Guerette]’s kicking ass,” Lofgren says. “She’s phenomenal in every way, and I know she’s going to do really well this summer. I have a lot of confidence in her, she’s really inspirational.”

Lofgren, the youngest of the Crimson representatives, is a relative newcomer to the national scene, but she’s certainly made a name for herself in her year of training.

At last weekend’s second national selection regatta, Lofgren and her partner, two-time world champion Lindsay Shoop, placed third in the finals of the women’s pairs, a sweep event.

The third-place finish was good enough to earn Lofgren an automatic invitation to the eights selection camp, which will start later this week. From now until June 25th, Lofgren will be competing for a spot in the eight-seat boat that will travel to Beijing to compete in August.

“It was a good race, and I think more than anything we’re in the mix, which is good,” Lofgren says. “The performances by other boats were really strong. It’s not only a couple of fast people, it’s a really competitive group.”

But it hasn’t been an easy journey for Lofgren, who first had to make the difficult decision to dedicate a year to trying out for a team she has no guarantee of making.

“For a relatively young athlete to come onto the scene in an Olympic year, it’s to some degree intimidating but also an unusual thing to have happen,” O’Leary says. “She recognized that if she was going to do it, she had to do it 110%.”

She also needed some time to get used to the shift from the more cooperative college atmosphere to the cutthroat competition of the national selection camps.

“It’s a tough thing to do, it’s a very singular thing, it’s very different from a college experience where you’re kind of all in this together,” O’Leary says. “The first thing you have to do is beat everyone else who will be on your team. It can be a very lonely year.”

But Lofgren has responded to the pressure, putting herself in good position to claim a spot in the Olympic eight heading into a period of international training and competition.

The coming weeks will take the US National team to Germany and Poland to race at World Cup events.

“I think Esther has done a remarkably great job this year,” O’Leary adds. “She’s come through it with maturity and with some good success.”

The final Radcliffe rower at national camp, Gavel, was recently invited to join the squad after her performance at one of the national selection regattas.

“She hasn’t been named to anything, and is probably a rookie in the eyes of most down there,” O’Leary says.

Gavel is working with the scullers and trying out for a spot in the Olympic quad.

But despite all of their success, this group of Crimson rowers still appreciates the community of their college team.

“Last year I was struggling in the winter, and I got a nice care package from the team,” Davies says. “It’s just really nice to know that I still have this support from my college team.”

“It’s a pretty impressive group of women who have come through this program, and we’re pretty proud of them,” O’Leary adds.

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kdleist@fas.harvard.edu.