Rowing not so gently to the team
By Dennis McCafferty

Cecile Tucker, who has birthed lambs and raked blueberries on her farm in rural Maine, is on the list. So is Michael Peterson, who led a thriving career as a Wall Street attorney before he quit his firm to chase a dream. There's also Ruth Anna Davidon, who pursues a medical degree at Johns Hopkins University while she goes for the gold.

With their dominating performances during the U.S. Olympic rowing trials in April, these three very different people now have something in common with each other and 45 other rowers: They'll represent the country during the Summer Games.

Nearly all of them only needed two races to win the necessary two out of three during the rowing trials. Just the double scull team (scullers use two oars to row) of Ty Bennion and Andrew McMarlin needed to compete in three finals to win two.

In some cases, most notably the men's and women's eight sweep boats (sweep rowers use only one oar), there was no competition.

Challengers to the nationally established teams sought spots on smaller boats instead of squaring off with the dominant eight boats. The men's eight won the gold at the 1994 World Rowing Championships in Indianapolis. The women's eight won the gold last year at the world games in Tampere, Finland.

National team-favored smaller boats fought off competition from noted clubs like Penn AC and the Boston Rowing Club. This was the first Olympic rowing preparation where favored national team members trained at designated centers in Augusta, Georgia; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and San Diego, California. While the advantages of working out as a team at a center have been huge, rowers weren't cocky during the trials.

"To not think about it is the best way to describe it," said Adam Holland, who will row in the sweep pair with Michael Peterson. "You can't take an adrenaline rush for three to four days."

Holland, who majored in folklore at Harvard University and enjoys blacksmithing, has made a big adjustment to be on the team. He won a silver medal in the four-man boat at the World Rowing Championships in 1994, but slipped to seventh last year at the worlds. Going to the pair was a way to get on the boat with the best speed, he said.

For most athletes, the trials were a way to familiarize themselves with Lake Lanier, the Olympic venue. About an hour north of Atlanta near Gainesville, Lake Lanier is a nautical weekend playground for city folks, created in the 1950s when local bigwigs looked at 58,000 acres of rolling farmland and envisioned a man-made lake to provide water supply, power production, and flood control.

Now, the lake is a $2 billion annual entertainment industry, with 16 million visitors a year heading to its 540 miles of shoreline. In 1993, Atlanta's Olympic movers and shakers picked Lake Lanier as the rowing venue, blowing off the previous choice of Rockdale County near Atlanta. (Things got shaky for Rockdale County when Olympic types realized there wasn't any water there. The reservoir was unfilled.)

U.S. rowers applaud the switch, saying Lake Lanier compares favorably with the best of the European venues. It's helped them get an edge for the Summer Games, as they've competed there this weekend and during the 1995 national championships as well.

But they realized nothing will prepare them completely for the real thing, because there's no event that comes close.

"This is just a prelude to the Olympics," said Sean Hall, who will row in the four-man sweep boat without coxswain, "which will be 50 times bigger with all the people and press and hoopla."

The U.S. team's best shots at medals, for now, are the men's and women's eight boats, as well as the sweep pair of Karen Kraft and Melissa Schwen.

After winning a silver in last year's world games to the Australian's gold, Kraft and Schwen made a bold move and broke from the national center in Chattanooga. Appropriately enough, they headed to Australia to train under noted small-boat coach Dick Garrard.

Dennis McCafferty covered the rowing trials for Outside Online. He is a staff writer on the state news desk for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.