Henrik Rummel: From Copenhagen to Harvard to London

When Henrik Rummel ’09 was born in Copenhagen 24 years ago, few would have expected him to become an Olympic athlete.

Fewer would have expected him to be competing for the United States.

But after a long journey that saw him move from Denmark to Sweden to Rochester, N.Y., and eventually to Cambridge, Mass., Rummel—the son of an American businessman and Danish military doctor—will row for the men’s heavyweight four at the London Games that start a week from Friday.

MADE IN AMERICA

Despite spending most of his childhood in Denmark, Rummel says there was never a question as to whether he would choose to row internationally as an American or a Dane.

“I started rowing here in the United States, and so I never really even considered rowing for Denmark,” Rummel said. “I’ve spent most of my adult life here, and I definitely feel an allegiance to America.”

Rummel, who speaks without an accent and is proficient in English, Danish, Swedish, and German, took up rowing in 2001 after realizing that he could not compete at a high level in his first athletic love, basketball.

Eleven years later, the 6’5” Rummel has spent six years rowing for the national team, first at the Junior Level in 2004-2005, then in 2008 at the Under-23 level before joining senior team in 2009.

Even so, rowing on the Olympic crew was not on his radar until it became apparent that it was a realistic possibility.

“I didn’t even know that I wanted to keep training after college when I started college,” Rummel said.

“Eventually, slowly, I came to that realization. At the U-23 camp in ’08, I went in and was racing against all the other college kids—the best guys in the country—and I was doing really well. So I thought, alright this might be possible. But that was four years ago. There was definitely no guarantee that I’d achieve anything, but I knew I had a shot.”

SEEING CRIMSON

In Rummel’s first year with the Crimson 1V, he was part of a 2007 crew that won the EARC Sprints as well as the Ladies’ Challenge Plate at the Henley Royal Regatta. But the crew failed to win the most important race of all: the famed Harvard-Yale Regatta, where the team fell to the Bulldogs by five-10ths of a second. Rummel and the rest of the 1V rebounded to win the next two years, including a dominant 20-second victory in 2009.

“The great thing about Harvard is that there are current and past athletes who are and have been at that level that I really wanted to be at when I was there,” Rummel said. “The marks are there, you never really get lost in yourself, and you always have something to compete against.”

Rummel, along with fellow Olympic newcomer Brodie Buckland ’06 and defending gold-medalist Malcolm Howard ’05 in the eight, will be the eighth Harvard heavyweight trained by legendary coach Harry Parker to compete in the Olympics since 2004.

“Harry’s been there for 50 years, and he’s the best coach you’ll ever find,” Rummel said. “He guided me through Harvard by pushing me and keeping me focused not just on what we could do as a team, but what I could accomplish as an individual. He knew my potential and steered me in the right direction when I wasn't sure what to do or where to go to train.”

Despite the long list of successful rowers to have come through Parker’s program, the long-time coach is still as enthusiastic as ever to see his former oarsmen compete in the Olympics.

“[Henrik] has put in his work over the last several years within the national team program,” Parker said. “He’s just now reaching his peak, and we’re really excited about his future.”

RED, WHITE, AND WHO?

Rummel’s journey to the Olympics was hardly traditional. After failing to qualify as a member of the USA eight at the 2011 World Rowing Championships with an eighth-place finish, Rummel reassessed his goals and prioritized making the four, which qualified by finishing fourth at those same championships.

“It all kind of came apart at Worlds; we underperformed drastically,” Rummel said. “And I said, alright, where do I want to be? Who do I want to row with? So, I set my priority on the four and decided that I wanted to row with the best rowers out there.”

After committing to the four, Rummel qualified for the Games in a boat alongside Scott Gault, Charlie Cole, and Glenn Ochal. Gault, a University of Washington graduate and the veteran of the boat, is the only crew member with Olympic experience, finishing fifth in the quadruple scull in Beijing in 2008. Cole, US Rowing’s 2011 Athlete of the Year, was a member of the Yale crew that bested Rummel and Harvard in 2007, and Ochal rowed against Rummel while at Princeton.

Ochal and Rummel are both newcomers to this boat, beating out other competition to join Gault and Cole on the four. The foursome has never competed in a major regatta together.

“Our goal is to go out there and win a medal, and I don’t think that’s out of reach at all,” Rummel said. “We’re a bit of an unknown because as a boat we haven’t raced together yet, but we know that we’re fast, and we’re ready to surprise some people.”

Competition in the men’s four begins with heats on July 30, and concludes with the grand final on August 4. Host Great Britain is the three-time defending Olympic champion, but the last two seasons of international fours have been extremely closely contested, and Australia beat out the UK in the most recent World Cup event by 0.87 seconds.

“The four is incredibly competitive, and a medal would really be quite an accomplishment,” Parker said.

STAYING AFLOAT

In the three years since graduating, Rummel has faced a problem most Olympic athletes confront: funding a career that generally cannot financially sustain itself. After living off support from his father for the first year, Rummel, an Applied Mathematics concentrator, has taken to tutoring as his primary source of income. But even with the stipend provided by US Rowing, the costs of travel, training, and accommodations often demand unorthodox sources of income.

“I can’t even count the number of odd jobs I’ve worked here and there just to keep afloat and be able to travel and compete,” Rummel said.

But Rummel said that he knew—and was prepared for—the lifestyle he was getting himself into.

“It was definitely a hard decision and something that I had to think about,” Rummel said of choosing to continue rowing. “But the more I thought about it, the more I felt that this was the only time I could do it. And if I didn’t do it, I knew that I would regret it.”

Even though he is young for a rowing Olympian, having just graduated from the U-23 ranks last year, Rummel is ever conscious of the often-fleetingly short limelight of an Olympian.

“You know this could be my first out of a long Olympic career, or it could be my last one,” Rummel said. “This could be my only chance, so I’m going to try and make the most of it.”

In doing so, Rummel feels a responsibility to row for more than just himself.

“I’m representing everyone I ever rowed with or against—they all helped me get here,” Rummel said. “I feel like I’m rowing for them. I want to do this for myself, but I recognize that if I didn’t have all these other teammates, coaches pushing me, and parents supporting me, then I wouldn’t be here.”

—Staff writer Alexander Koenig can be reached at akoenig@college.harvard.edu.