Four More UW Alums Earn U.S. Olympic Team Spots
June 21, 2016 | Women's Rowing
Four more former Washington rowers have been named to the United States team for the 2016 Olympic Games, USRowing announced Monday.
Adrienne Martelli '10 and Megan Kalmoe '06 both earned spots in the U.S. quadruple sculls while Katelin Snyder '09 and Kerry Simmonds '11 will both compete in the American women's eight. Snyder is the boat's coxswain.
These four will join eight other UW alumni who had already been named to various boats for the Rio Olympics, which get underway Aug. 5, in Rio di Janeiro, Brazil. Four Huskies are the U.S. men's eight (coxswain Sam Ojserkis, Rob Munn, Sam Dommer and Hans Struzyna) while five Husky alumni are part of the Canadian Olympic team: Rob Gibson in the quadruple sculls, Will Crothers and Conlin McCabe in the four and Patricia Obee in the lightweight quad sculls.
Kalmoe is one of the most experienced among current U.S. women's rowers, having won a bronze medal in the quad sculls at the 2012 Olympics in London while also having competed in double sculls in 2008. Among the many other medals she's won is a gold, in the quad, at the 2015 World Championships.
Martelli, a graduate of Curtis High in University Place, Wash., was also in that bronze medal-winning U.S. quad in London and won gold at the 2015 Worlds in the coxless four.
Snyder, who coxed the UW men to Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships in both 2008 and 2009, will be making her first Olympics appearance in 2016. She won gold in the U.S. eight at the World Championships in 2014 and 2015.
Simmonds will also be taking part in her first Olympics. She earned a gold medal in the American eight in 2013 and 2015 while also earning a silver in the pair in 2014.
With today's announcement, Husky alums will be serving as U.S. coxswain for the only two coxed events in the Olympics (there is no longer a coxed four in Olympic competition). Former UW cox Mary Whipple was the U.S. coxswain for the previous three Games (2004, 2008 and 2012), while Betsy Beard was the American cox in 1984 and 1988.
Four Huskies have served as coxswain on U.S. men's Olympic teams before Ojserkis: Bob Moch (1936, eight), Allen Morgan (1948, four), Al Rossi (1952, four) and John Stillings (1984, four). Incidentally, new UW women's head coach Yasmin Farooq was the United States women's eight coxswain for the 1992 and 1996 games, meaning that someone currently associated with UW rowing has served as the American women's eight coxswain in eight of the last nine Olympiads.
