Rowing champ: 60-year-old says you're never too old

By GINA STAFFORD

840 words

5 March 1999

11:10 AM

Associated Press Newswires

APRS

English

(c) 1999. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Jan Kaman took a canvas bag with a medal and two hammers in it almost everywhere she went.

She showed the prized possessions to co-workers at the Knox County Health Department, to fellow congregation and choir members at Inskip United Methodist Church and, especially, to her fellow rowers.

Each of the shiny hammers represents a world record broken on her way to winning that medal recently at the 18th World Indoor Rowing Championships in Boston, also known as the "CRASH-Bs."

The nickname is an acronym for Charles River All-Star Has Beens, and the amateur competition was founded in 1978 by ex-Olympic and national team oarsmen.

Kaman, 60, had never even seen the inside of a boat until two years ago. That's when curiosity drew her to the Head of the Tennessee Regatta at Sequoyah Park, organized each October by the Knoxville Rowing Association.

"I wanted to see them rowing, and I didn't have a clue about the boats or the equipment," Kaman said. "It just intrigued me. Then I wanted to try it."

A friend picked up a flier for the KRA, Kaman called the number and began working out with the group.

"The best thing about the Knoxville Rowing Association is it's all volunteer and people from all backgrounds and experience levels," Kaman said. "There are nurses, occupational therapists, a molecular biologist, a physics professor, lawyers, and none of it matters once we're rowing because everybody's the same. Whoever you are, you're just learning to row same as I am.

"There are people who've rowed before, but by and large a lot of just plain neophytes."

Paul Wolfensberger agrees. A former collegiate rower at Syracuse University, he's been coaching the group for two years.

"The first time I walked in, several admitted this was the first athletic thing they'd done and to look at them, you wouldn't believe they could work athletically for an hour, but then some get on the machines and become monsters," Wolfensberger said. "You wouldn't look at Jan and think, `Now there's a monster,' but she didn't just break the world record, she shattered it."

She did so on an ergometer, a rowing machine originally intended to help athletes train indoors in winter. At the Chattanooga Erg Sprints on Jan. 30, eight minutes, 40 seconds was the maximum 2,000 meters finish time for those in Kaman's 60-69 age group to qualify for the CRASH-Bs.

Kaman finished her 2,000-meter piece in eight minutes, 16.7 seconds. The lightweight world record for her age group had been eight minutes, 26 seconds.

One week ago Sunday she did her 2,000-meter piece at the CRASH-Bs in eight minutes, 15.3 seconds.

"My intent was to row with better form and harder than in Chattanooga and to meet or beat my record and I did," Kaman said. "But I was about at the end of my rope. I had maybe another 100 meters in me.

"The last 200 I really turned it on. The announcer was really rattling my cage, too. He kept saying, `Oh, look out, there's Jan Kaman moving on!"'

The attention may have made her nervous, but her husband of 37 years never doubted.

"First of all, I knew she would win it," George Kaman said. "If she'd concentrated and hadn't run away with herself the first 1,500 meters, she would have done better. But looking back, that gives her some wiggle room for improvement in the future."

Kaman's coach also predicts improvement.

"Jan, thankfully, has a great deal of tenacity," Wolfensberger said. "I think that and obviously some natural talent's coming in is the reason she's done so well.

"She's competitive with women in their 30s. She's not competitive with, say, a collegiate woman rower, but if she were to go to a college program, she certainly wouldn't be the slowest.

"A good, top-level, Division I rower ought to be able to achieve the 7:30s, and keep in mind this is only Jan's second year. In a year or two, she'll go to Boston being the top dog. She already was listed in the program this year as someone to watch for."

Wolfensberger and Kaman both praise the sport for its all-over, non-impact workout.

Wolfensberger presides over hour-long workouts beginning at 6:30 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Saturday's water sessions are for more experienced rowers with some weeknight workouts under their belts.

"It's really crazy to wait until your sixth decade to start breaking world records, but I'm proof you can do it," Kaman said. "I feel great. I did what I wanted to do, and I proved it wasn't a fluke."

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