Silken Laumann: A golden bronze

Silken Laumann won three Olympic medals during her rowing career: one silver and two bronze. She was a world champion and was widely considered the best single rower of her time, but bad luck prevented her from parlaying that into an Olympic gold.

And yet, it's one of her bronze medals that stands up as one of the great moments in Canadian Olympic lore. It more than met the gold standard of courage and determination in the face of adversity.

Laumann may have been built for rowing and competed as a rower in four Olympics and eight world championships, but Laumann's first love was track. As a high school track star, Laumann was tall with a ropey body. Then her body started changing.

"I started turning into a woman," Laumann told CBC. "I started to fight just getting bigger and stronger and it wasn't a good combination for being a runner."

In just a few short years Laumann went from being just a little taller than most girls, to being bigger than almost everybody. The strain on her body lead to nagging leg and back injuries.

"I didn't pick rowing. I think in some ways rowing picked me. My sister Danielle was a competitive rower. She'd already reached a fairly high level and she was always trying to get me to row, saying this is a sport you could do really well in," explained Laumann.

Team Laumann

Laumann was hooked as soon as she got in a rowing shell, and "Team Laumann" was born. But it wasn't always smooth sailing for the sisters. According to Laumann's father, Hans, the two sisters were like "cats and dogs."

"Danielle had already developed a style, and Silken had lots of determination, but when it came to technique she was quite rusty, so Danielle got cheesed off many times," he told CBC.

Silken and Danielle got in synch with each other in time for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, where they won a bronze medal. Following that success, though, Danielle quit rowing to become a lawyer. By the 1988 Seoul Olympics Silken had a new partner, Kaye Worthington.

Worthington was also an accomplished single rower. As good as they were individually, Laumann and Worthington had trouble meshing.

"We just weren't able to combine our techniques, to combine our psychologies, and spent the season sort of fighting each other rather than working together," said Laumann.

As a result, they failed to even reach the finals in Seoul. That may have been a huge setback for Laumann, but during the Seoul Games Laumann grew close to John Wallace, a rower with the men's men's eight crew, which also had a disappointing Olympics.

"The men's eight that I was in was the only team on the Olympic team to make the final and we came in 6th, dead last on the final and that was the best result," Wallace told CBC. "So it was a collective feeling of sadness and really under-performing at the Olympics. So I think a lot of us were commiserating afterwards."

"We were both in a kind of emotional state in our lives and really bonded over that weak period," said Laumann.

Laumann and Wallace married shortly after. Their marriage turned out to be good for Laumann's rowing career, too.

"It was like having a partner in the boat, but he wasn't in the boat. I think that was a huge benefit."

Getting married and becoming a single

In 1990, Mike Spracklen was coaching the Canadian men's team in Victoria, B.C. Laumann, who was now the top female single rower in the country, was looking for a new coach. She approached Spracklen, considered one of the world's best coaches.

"What I told her was that my role was to coach the men's team. If you as an individual, are prepared to play second fiddle to that system, then I would help you as much as I can. I will give you all the help you need, but there will be times when I have to give my first attention to the men at your expense," recalled Spracklen.

Laumann agreed to Spracklen's terms, and under his tutelage, she seemed to turn the corner. She won the world championship the following year, and looked like the favourite at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

But 10 weeks before the Games, the Canadian rowing team was in Germany for a qualifying regatta. While training out on the lake, Laumann's boat was struck full force by a men's pair boat.

"The bang, which sounded very much like two cars crashing, was my boat splintering. I didn't really feel anything, and then I looked down at my leg and it was just a mess. The injury looked so bad I actually wondered whether I was going to lose my leg, because I could see the bone," said Laumann.

It was a devastating injury, but it could have been worse. Since it was her lower leg that was broken, the bigger muscles around the hip and thigh were not badly damaged.

Laumann spent a week in a German hospital before flying back to Victoria with the wound still open and immediately starting a rehab program on specially adapted equipment.

"I was going hard every single day, but at that time. I was still pretty far away from the ability to go and race at an international level. Three weeks before the Olympics I was almost 30 seconds slower in my boat than I needed to be to compete at the Olympic games."

Laumann did make up the necessary ground and competed in Barcelona sporting a heavily bandaged leg.

"I competed just as if nothing had happened. And really, I can honestly say that for the first half of the (final) race I felt totally normal," said Laumann. "But then I guess at the halfway point, I really started to feel my lack of fitness, and I actually thought, I'm not going to make it."

A golden bronze

Laumann had fallen to fourth spot in the final behind the American, Belgian and Romanian boats.

"I just went crazy. I just kind of put my oars in the water and gave it everything I could for the last 20, 30 strokes of the race," explaind Laumann.

Laumann finished third and instantly became a Canadian sporting legend, her name and toothy grin synonymous with resilience.

"I think that bronze medal has become something very special in my life," beams Laumann. "It's like a touchstone almost, if you will, for something that represents the ability to overcome the unexpected."

Three years later, Laumann helped the women's fours to a gold medal at the Pan Am Games in Argentina, but the euphoria of victory would be short-lived. Laumann failed a drug test and she and her teammates were stripped of their gold medals. It was a jarring turn of events for someone with such a wholesome, plucky image.

Before the Pan-Am Games, Laumann had taken Benadryl, an over-the-counter cold remedy that contained a banned stimulant. At an emotional press conference the rower explained that there are two types of Benadryl, one that could be used by athletes, and one that couldn't. Unfortunately, Laumann had inadvertently selected the latter.

While the 1992 accident left Laumann physically scarred, suspicions that she cheated left her emotionally scarred.

"It was a very negative experience. Ultimately, I felt it was a very innocent mistake, and it was treated like a crime at first," says Laumann.

Laumann overcame the medicine mix-up and the terrible season that followed to win a silver medal at the world championships at the end of the year. It was an important finish because it set the stage for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

"I think I trusted my own instincts more in 1996. So I really matured as an athlete. I feel I realized my potential, all the lessons I learned in rowing came together," recalls Laumann.

Laumann was back in the single sculls boat at the 1996 Atlanta Games, this time winning a silver medal. She could not think of a better time to end her competitive rowing career.

Today, Laumann does work for the advocacy group, Right To Play, and speaks to corporate audiences and schools, passing on the lessons she learned on the water.

"(Rowing) taught me how to take risks, it's taught me that usually a risk feels scary, but you've got to push yourself to do it. When you do, there's a tremendous feeling of satisfaction that most things in life have a risk element to it. But that's kind of exciting and fun, and it's okay to feel afraid."

reprinted with permission