The Most Dominant Team You’ve Never Heard Of: The U.S. Women’s Rowing Eight Olympic Triumph Outside the Rio Spotlight: Outside the Rio Spotlight, #12
By Maria Kaj
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About this ebook
Winning every race from one Olympics to the next is incredibly difficult. Spanning three Olympics is virtually impossible. Yet, the American women's rowing eight, after just being edged out in Athens in 2004, did the impossible. They went undefeated for eleven years, which means they came into the 2016 Olympics with a huge target on their back. Other countries were breathing down their neck, from the Canadians who grabbed the silver four years earlier to the Romanians who had once equally dominated the waters. Even worse, the cox who had helped the team win their previous two golds had moved on, and this team would be helmed by a rookie. But the "girls" in this boat, like the famous "boys" so many years earlier, had the hearts of champions and a secret weapon. They knew how to win. (9000 words)
Read more from Maria Kaj
The A to Z Olympics: 26 Torch-Worthy Tales & Tidbits Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOutside the Rio Spotlight: American Triumphs You Didn't See at the 2016 Olympics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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The Most Dominant Team You’ve Never Heard Of - Maria Kaj
Your respect for the author’s copyright is deeply appreciated.
Text copyright © by Maria Kaj 2018
Cover design collaboration by Maria Kaj and Karin Kaj.
First Edition.
All rights reserved. This work is sold subject to the condition that it shall not in any way be circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any alternate, copied or replicated form of digital, binding or cover. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book by any means without permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy.
Information contained is based on publicly available sources and is neither authorized nor endorsed by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC/Team USA) or its athletes.
Although the author and publisher have attempted to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information contained, we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein. Information provided is as is.
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This story is one chapter of a full-length work, covering a dozen examples of American excellence at the 2016 Olympics. While the U.S. women’s rowing eight account stands on its own, it can be read along with the others in Outside the Rio Spotlight: American Triumphs You Didn’t See at the 2016 Olympics. The book can be purchased in ePub and other forms at other fine digital purveyors. The paperback edition is also available at the author’s website at kajmeister.com.
The Most Dominant Team You’ve Never Heard Of:
The U.S. Women’s Rowing Eight Olympic Triumph Outside the Rio Spotlight
by Maria Kaj
Foreword
As Gertrude Stein or George Orwell might have said:
A gold medal is a gold medal is a gold medal.
…however…
All gold medals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the United States dominated in sport at an unprecedented level, winning 46 gold and 121 total medals. This was the highest gold medal and total medal count for America—or for any nation—when not hosting the Games in a non-boycotted Olympics. Americans won in 20 of the 27 sport categories with 210 athletes receiving medals across dozens of individual categories. By any stretch of the imagination, that is a whopping mound of athletic success.
However, if you watched the national prime time feed or just scanned headlines, only six sports seemed to take place. The vast majority of coverage involved swimming, gymnastics, basketball, diving, track sprints, and beach volleyball. The other 20+ sport categories were crammed into quick updates that merely mentioned a winner or flashed a shot of the medal stand. Many of these glossed-over achievements were notable firsts, nail-biter contests, or remarkable demonstrations of mastery. Just showing a picture on the screen about the youngest gold medalist or the first American in a sport does not do justice to the triumph represented or the sacrifice required to get there.
This account sets out to spotlight the athletic performance of a team that garnered hardly any notice, despite winning a medal in such dominating fashion that they were called the best in the world, even