CHUNGJU, South Korea - For the last eight years, Natalie McCarthy (Seattle, Wash.) has worked and dreamed of standing where she was standing yesterday, on the podium at a world rowing championship.
She rowed for four years in college at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., and later began training on her own while working as a Spanish interpreter for a law firm, trying as hard as she could to make the United States legs, truck and arms four with coxswain. She got close, she said, but never made it past development and selection camps.
She quit her job a year ago, and partnered up with Paul Hurley (Washington, D.C.), a retired U.S. Naval Officer who lost his leg in an accident in Bahrain, who just happened to have started rowing and held the world record for indoor 1,000-meters.
Wednesday, she stood with Hurley on the medals dock at the 2013 World Rowing Championships, waiting to receive the first medal for the United States in Chungju, South Korea.
“It’s really exciting,” McCarthy said. “I’ve been training for this for eight years. And so, literally, I’m living my dream right now. This is a dream come true. I never, ever expected to get here, much less win a bronze medal. I am on cloud nine right now.”
The pair not only won the first U.S. medal here, but won it in the legs, trunk and arms mixed Para-Rowing double sculls, a new event in international adaptive rowing. After rowing in a race for lanes and finishing third on Tuesday, the crew returned today and finished third again.
“This feels great,” said Hurley, an information systems engineer by day, who is starting a brewing company in Northern, Virginia, by night. “This is what we came here for,” he said. “We held our race plan and I think it went really well. It’s my first world championship,” he said. “We’re a young boat, so we’ve got a lot of room for improvement.”
McCarthy and Hurley were the only one of three Para-Rowing crews that competed in finals and left with a medal. Racing Ukraine, Germany and Korea, the U.S. rowed in third the length of the 1,000-meter course and finished there. Ukraine won in 3:27.98, Germany finished second in 3:34.48 and the U.S. finished in 4:08.59.
In the trunk and arms mixed double sculls, London Paralympic bronze medalists Rob Jones (Lovettsville, Va.) and Oksana Masters (Buffalo, N.Y.), returning from a bronze-medal performance at the 2013 World Rowing Cup #2 in Eton, raced in the final against Israel, Ukraine, France, Austria and The Netherlands.
From the start, Austria, France and Ukraine got out in front of them and despite battling Ukraine to the line, they finished fourth. Austria won in 3:58.00. France was second in 3:59.93. Ukraine edged the U.S. 4:03.34 to 4:03.61.
In the legs, trunk and arms four with coxswain crew of Jenny Sichel (Clifton, N.J.), Andrew Johnson (Riverside, Conn.), Eric McDaniel (Weeki Wachee, Fla.), Kathy Byington(Washington, D.C.) and Jaclyn Smith (Williston Park, N.Y.) raced the final against Great Britain, Italy, South Africa, Korea and Ukraine and finished fourth.
Great Britain won gold. Italy was second and South Africa was third.
In B final Para-Rowing racing, arms and shoulders women’s single sculler Dana Fink (Washington, D.C.) finished third, for a ninth-place finish overall. Korea won the race. Hungary was second.
Arms and shoulders men’s single sculler Daniel Ahr (Mount Laurel, N.J.) f
Racing continues Thursday at 9:30 a.m. local time (+13 hours EST). A complete schedule and results are available at www.worldrowing.com.