Longtime Anchorage rower Marietta "Ed" Hall grew up idolizing Olympic rower Kris Thorsness, the former West High athlete who became the first Alaskan to win an Olympic gold medal. Hall's sister married Thorsness' brother, securing Hall's 22-year link to the sport.
And Torie Baker, who brought a contingent of her hometown Cordova rowers to Wasilla Lake last month for the Moose Nugget Regatta, is a former national team rower. At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, she was an assistant team manager while Thorsness, four years removed from her gold medal, was an alternate on the women's eight team that finished sixth.
"Exceptionally intense," Baker said of Thorsness. "I trained with Kris and we've been good friends. She was an incredible leader of that 1984 team."
Rowing is the odd Alaska sport that measures its participants by the dozen yet has produced three women Olympians, two Pan American Games gold medalists and several NCAA champions over the last quarter-century.
By contrast, thousands of Alaskans have played hockey and starred at every level of the sport played atop the frozen water that rowers slice through. Yet only two Alaskans have competed in Olympic hockey, and no Alaskan has ever medaled in cross-country skiing, another sport firmly entrenched in the Alaskan persona.
Given that, who could be surprised that 41 Alaska rowers are headed for the Sydney International Regatta Center in Australia, site of last year's Olympic competition, to row in the World Masters Games beginning Oct. 10?
Certainly not Hall, who brought home gold (with Julie Truskowski in the B women's pair race) and bronze (with Anna Kohl in the A women's pair) medals from the 2005 World Masters Games in Edmonton.
"Those medals means a lot to me," Hall said. "It's the Olympics for old people who are over the hill."
There's little heritage of rowing in Alaska, no proving ground for high school athletes who wish to compete on collegiate crew teams. Yet Alaskans have succeeded in this demanding sport, which tests endurance and the power of multiple muscle groups.
"It is amazing, the affinity Alaskans seem to have for it," Hall said. "It's a sport for late bloomers. Their prime rowing years are from their late 20s to late 30s. You can take all the sports you've done and apply it to your rowing career."
After Thorsness' Olympic gold medal in the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles as a member of the women's eight team, Anchorage's Diana Olson competed in the women's eight team at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and Homer's Stacey Borgman rowed in the women's lightweight double sculls at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Numerous Alaskans have found success at the college level, and Dan McGill of Fairbanks and Ed Grose of Juneau both boast gold medals from the Pan-Am Games.
"It's interesting that this sport appeals to Alaskans," said Audrey Coon of Kenai, who, with former Service High athlete Casey Mapes and South High's Heather Kelly, helped Western Washington University earn the latest of its five consecutive NCAA Division II National Rowing Championships in late May.
"Maybe it has to do with the outdoors, being by yourself outside in the morning. It's pretty rugged, I like to think. You've got to be out there no matter the weather. (Alaskans) bring a sense of bad-ass."
TEAM ATMOSPHERE
The minimum age for masters athletes at the World Games varies by sport. Competitions for golfers and softball players, for example, begin at 35. Track and field athletes reach masters status at age 30. But rowers qualify as young as 27 and can compete as long as they wish.
Participation in most masters events is growing, and rowing is no exception. Some 28,000 athletes are expected to compete in 28 sports at the World Masters Games, resulting in what organizers call the largest international multisport competition ever.
What's the attraction?
Some older rowers value being part of a tightly meshed team during their post-collegiate years while reaping significant health benefits.
"What I've been intrigued with is that it's such an amazing team sport," Baker said. "To have opportunity at a later time in life to get involved in a real team sport is a real blessing -- and the whole act of rowing demands synergy and symmetry."
Or, as Anchorage Rowing Club coach Kern McKinley said, "It's a sport that punishes individual initiative."
There are two types of competitive rowers. Scullers use two 10-foot oars, competing in singles, doubles and quads. Sweepers use one oar each and race in pairs, fours and eights.
The latter, McKinley said, tends to be the showpiece.
"All clubs have an eight and any club is typically as good as its best eight. It's a very big challenge, particularly with adults -- most of whom are working -- to coordinate schedules and get them working together. Often, you end up with people who've never been on a team before and never been coached.
"But typically, coaches don't cut people. The difficulty of the sport cuts people."
And its beauty attracts them -- the beauty of several athletes working in concert, the beauty of pushing your body to exhaustion without absorbing the pounding of other sports, the beauty of slicing through the water at dawn on a still lake accompanied by waterfowl.
Baker, a commercial fisherwoman who moved to Cordova 22 years ago, found all that on 4-mile-long Eyak Lake outside Cordova. Even on rainy days, there's good wind protection -- and sights aplenty.
"Mountains, seals, salmon and eagles," Baker ticks off. "Pretty much, a classic Alaska postcard."
Enough to make athlete -- especially, perhaps, an aging one -- glad to sweat during sunup.
Reach reporter Mike Campbell at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.
Follow the games
Forty-one Alaska rowers from the Anchorage Rowing Association, Kenai Crewsers Rowing Club and the Alaska Midnight Sun Rowing Club in Soldotna are expected to compete in Sydney, Australia, beginning Oct. 10.
RESULTS: Anchorage Rowing Association will post results on its Web site, www.anchoragerowing.com
WORLD MASTERS GAMES: You can also check the competition site, www.2009.worldmasters.com/
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