Robert Vigert, 45, Sweden
"When you win they put your name up in blue and white and when you're old you can bring your grandchildren to see it."
At 45, Robert Vigert is hardly an old man, but he holds the distinction of being the oldest Swedish rowing champion his hometown of Stockholm has ever seen. He holds 11 Swedish championships, winning two of them just last week in the senior category. Vigert is a member of the 126-year-old Stockholm Rowing Club. The club's flag is blue and white, the colors of Sweden's capital city, and it is a tradition to emblazon the names of champions high up near the ceiling so that they are forever immortalized for posterity.
While his two sons, 13 and 16, are proud of him now, he looks forward to the day he can bring his grandchildren to see his name up on the championship board. "When you win they put your name up in blue and white and when you're old you can bring your grandchildren to see it," he explains.
He is competing in six events at Mercer Lake. They include a pair, double, quad, and a four. On day one he and his partner Jan Berglund took first place in the pairs "A" age category. "We had a winning time of three-tenths of a second faster than the second boat which is really great because we were competing against younger people. That's really something when you can be older and still win."
Vigert was 18 when he started rowing at a club near his home. He was good enough to be considered as a candidate for the 1988 Seoul Olympics in the straight four. There were six finalists and he just missed the cut. While it was disappointing, it didn't deter him from continuing his intense training. This is his 6th international Masters regatta and he has a very strong winning streak going over the years which he intends to maintain. The "old man" is off to a great start.
Alejandro Daniel Gasparrini, 56, Argentina
"Rowing singles is an egotistical sport, but that's why I like it."
Alejandro Daniel Gasparrini loves to win, and he's got plenty of medals to show that he's very good at doing exactly that. He won gold in international Masters competition in Holland, France, and Scotland, and now he's struck gold again at Mercer Lake. He's rowing in three singles events and when we caught up with him, he had taken first place his first time out. "Coming from South America, I've played soccer and I've played tennis, but I don't like those sports as much as rowing. I love to row singles alone. I can be out on the water and appreciate the natural beauty. It is perhaps the most egotistical sport but that's why I like it."
Gasparrini started rowing when he was attending university in Argentina. He stopped rowing for a time between the ages of 20 to 25, but found that when he didn't row, he didn't feel quite right. "The rowing for me, it's like a drug," he says. "I need to do it." He picked up as a masters rower 16 years ago, and now, even when he travels, he asks if there's an ergometer in the hotel. His home and his vacation house are both outfitted with ergometers. His practices are intense: three days a week, four hours each day. Sundays are set aside to lift weights.
He rows chiefly in a river delta in Buenos Aires, but there are other rivers close to his home that he'll choose depending on the wind and current conditions that day. He says Mercer Lake is "ideal for practicing and for rowing, there's no wind, and the temperature is perfect."
When he's not rowing, Gasparrini is the president of an industrial product supply company in Buenos Aires. He is also the father of four children, 21, 20, 15, and 10, though none of them have followed in his "footstretchers" as a rower.
While winning is important to him, the opportunity to row and to be a part of an event as extraordinary as the FISA World Masters Regatta is why the awards they put around his neck are simply icing on the cake. "The medal is secondary. I put all my effort in to win but I am a winner already to travel around the world doing what I love to do."
Sandi Hurst, 53, U.S.A.
"Going to the gym is a yawn after a while. Rowing is a lot more fun."
Sandi Hurst started out rowing doubles. She never imagined she'd end up being a coxswain. She literally was thrown into it. "My doubles partner also rowed in a competitive four. One morning their cox didn't show up. They came over, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, threw me into the boat, and said, here you go!"
She had been rowing for five years at that point, and people had always assumed she was a coxswain. She stands five-foot-three and her good cox weight is 110, the perfect cox build. "But it just didn't look fun to me. Imagine sitting there in front of a boat filled with eight type A people with their feet tied down. It's the very definition of impotent fury."
But over the years, she's discovered that coxing is not only a lot of fun, it's something she's good at. And masters competitions give her an arena to show what she's made of. "The cool thing about pickup clubs is that I don't know who's going to be in my boat. You don't know the dynamics of the rowers until you warm up and it's your job to synthesize four or eight engines into one working hull. It's all about getting everybody to do everything together at the same time."
Hurst is coxing for two men's fours out of the Miami Beach Rowing Club. What is it like to be the sole woman barking out orders to four fiercely competitive males? "There's no gender consideration at all," she laughs. "There's no social component from the moment we put our uniforms on. I'm considered part of the equipment. As far as they're concerned, I'm part of the boat."
Hurst was already a mother of five when she started rowing some 20 years ago. "My husband played golf. I didn't play golf. I needed something physical to reduce the stress. The first day I went out in a racing double, I thought this is the most amazing thing that two people who aren't married can do together. I only needed three strokes to become a convert." Her oldest child is now 31. Her youngest, 24, just finished her first year of an MBA on a rowing scholarship thanks to four years of eligibility that allowed her to row three years in college as well.
Though she loves to pull the oars, she knows that the cox box is where she belongs right now. "No matter how hard I train I'm not going to be five-eight. I can't change my body. But coxing is great too. When you can take crazy chances, when you know what it's going to take to push through, open up water and demoralize the other teams, it's just magic."
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