Along with all of the other national team hopefuls who blasted down the course at the USRowing Nationals last weekend, the US adaptive teams also seized the chance to rehearse their crews under official regatta racing conditions. After the racing, I spoke to Jesse Karmazin, the stroke of the LTA4+, a 2007 Princeton grad who rowed for four years in the men's heavyweight program at Princeton, including competing in the varsity crews throughout the fall and spring seasons as well as at Eastern Sprints.

Jesse got his start in rowing much like most walk-on frosh do - in the freshman orientation campus sweep. After rowing for a year with his standard walking prosthesis, Princeton coach Greg Hughes got together with then-adaptive coach Tom Hewitt to find A Step Ahead, who designed and donated a rowing prosthesis to Jesse. You can read more about Jesse's first couple years at Princeton here.

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At the end of a college season, how was the transition from a varsity program to the adaptive program - from eights to fours, and to a less centralized program - was it an extreme change?

It was. I'm going from a very structured program that is very large with a long history behind it to something that is relatively new. People have experience but as a whole it's a relatively inexperienced group in that we don't really have the resources or the time together that I did at Princeton, so it presents interesting challenges!

How are things going this summer? I assume everything is just coming together now.

We're all spread out geographically, so we take weekends together and we're doing that regularly throughout the summer. It's not ideal, but before we go over we get together for a stretch in Philly to do twice-a-days for training.

So what are you doing when you are training on your own?

I relocated to DC and started my job (Jesse is doing public policy work), so am looking to row at one of the boathouses, but I haven't been on the water yet!

So you're spinning ergs.

(laughs) Pretty much! It's really brutal in the middle of the summer... I've been trying to cross-train a little, but for the most part it's the erg. It's fine.

I know you got a special prosthetic made for rowing; how does it work?

Yeah, you want to see it? My freshman year, I tried to erg with this one (his walking prosthetic), but the problem was that the ankle is stiff, so you really can't compress. So the only difference is that this one (the rowing prosthetic) has a freely rotating ankle.

Did you get it custom-made?

There's a guy on Long Island that makes prosthetics (A Step Ahead), and he likes to sponsor athletes, and he gave it to me.

Did it work right away?

Yeah, it did. I've been thinking about possible modifications to it, but it really works well.

I can remember when you were first starting to row, full slide travel wasn't really possible. Then by this past year, it was completely different, you rowed and fit in as well as anyone.

Yeah, it was more like half-slide rowing at first. Now, There's not such a difference that it is really a problem in any boat. After Sprints this year, I went back to Princeton and was rowing the single.

How is the boat going this year?

Not bad! Even considering the conditions, we're faster than last year, faster than we were at this time, so there's no reason we can't do better. Last year we finished fifth, which is? not bad? But we thought we would medal. We thought we were faster than we were, I guess, compared to the field.

So a bit of a shock to the system?

Yeah, a little bit. Mainly, we had a bad final race. There's nothing really that we have to change too much; I think the training program last year was fine, but everyone coming back is getting a little faster.

Are you going to keep training through Beijing?

Definitely.

Are you the first person to row all four years in college in the adaptive program?

Jamie Dean rowed at Wake Forest in the club program, and Ariel rowed in college (at Mills and Humboldt State), and Tracy rowed at Western Washington.

Finally, how did you get started in rowing?
Basically, the crew team stands around during freshman orientation asking anyone who looks tall or athletic to try crew. Being interested in it, I went down to the boathouse and tried it. From there, I'm guessing I liked it for the same reasons other rowers enjoy the sport. It probably helped that (then Princeton frosh heavy coach) Greg Hughes was extremely supportive, i.e. with respect to me having a prosthetic leg.