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Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Extra scullwork pays off for Meyer
Rower is first U.S. woman to medal at Worlds
In the past year, there have been dozens of high school athletes who have garnered banner headlines.
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 | Scott Eklund / P-I | |
| Holy Names senior Lindsay Meyer, a member of the team at the Pocock Rowing Center in Seattle, works out in her single scull on the Lake Washington Ship Canal. | ||
Ferndale quarterback Jake Locker became a local celeb after leading his team to the Class 3A state football championship and ditching baseball for a football scholarship to Washington. Spencer Hawes gained national attention as the crown jewel of the UW's 2007 recruiting class and as MVP of the 3A state basketball tournament. Jackson's Travis Snider was the 14th overall pick in the Major League Baseball draft.
Stories of the high school athlete whose accomplishments are arguably the most remarkable, however, have been buried deep in the local sports pages.
Holy Names senior Lindsay Meyer became the first U.S. woman to win a sculling medal at the FISA World Rowing Junior Championships in August when she took the bronze in junior women's single sculls. In July, she won gold medals in intermediate and senior single sculls, and a silver in the elite/open division at the U.S. Rowing National Championships.
Her accomplishments were groundbreaking in the sport, though Meyer said the magnitude hasn't really hit her.
"I don't think I really realized it until ... well, actually, I don't know if I have realized it," she said with a smile last week.
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| Scott Eklund / P-I | |
| Lindsay Meyer | ||
People like Conal Groom -- a former Olympic rower and Meyer's coach at the Pocock Rowing Center -- say her intense work ethic doesn't allow her time to reflect. Meyer practices two hours each day before Holy Names' 8 a.m. start time.
"She worked harder and had a little more to give each time, defining what she was capable of," Groom said of Meyer's races leading to the FISA Junior Championships. "How many teenagers know their physiological limits? Know how much pain they can stand and when to cut back? In every race, Lindsay kept pushing herself and redefining her limits.
"That's very hard for a 17-year-old to do."
Meyer said that drive to do well has been a part of her makeup since her sculling career began as an eighth-grader in 2003.
That year, her mother persuaded her to join the Lake Union Crew. The following year, Meyer joined the Holy Names team as a freshman and rowed with the Cougars for two years.
She wanted to become a world-class rower, and to do that she moved to Pocock and back to sculling competition.
Her training there helped her win a gold medal in the women's intermediate single sculls at the USRowing national championships (7:59.52). She also earned a silver medal in the women's elite single sculls in 7:52.37.
Meyer then traveled to Amsterdam for the FISA World Rowing Junior Championships, where she competed at the elite level. Heats began on Aug. 2, and friends from Holy Names were up at 4 a.m. a few days later to listen to a Web broadcast of her women's single sculls bronze in 8:10.11 -- less than six seconds behind Poland's Natalia Madaj.
Her feat is even more exceptional, Groom said, because many Europeans begin sculling at age 9. He said while Meyer has many options, an Olympic berth in 2012 -- when she's closer to the age of most Olympians -- is not out of the question.
"It's still kind of weird for me because it felt like just another race," Meyer said. "Pretty much, I was just happy to be there."
DID YOU KNOW?
Lindsay Meyer wasn't the only local competitor at the 2006 FISA World Rowing Junior Championships:
In other rowing news:
-- Casey McNerthney
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