An Oakland high schooler helped inspire Kara Kohler to compete again. She is now a medal contender at this summer’s Paris Olympics.
Olympic rower Kara Kohler of Clayton practices along the Oakland Estuary on Friday, June 7, 2024. Kohler is back in the Olympics, trying to become the first American woman to win gold in single sculls. In 2012, she won bronze medal at the London Olympics in quad sculls.
She was “a remarkable athlete,” Woll said, the perfect example of someone who can achieve anything they set their mind to.“Coaching turned out to be more multi-dimensional than I thought,” she said. “It was a symbiotic inspirational loop.” She helped guide Woll to a spot on the Princeton rowing team, then made a decision for herself: She wanted to give her career another chance.Kohler had earned an Olympic spot in 2012 because she was a strong athlete with incredible endurance that would help an eight-person boat.
Kohler entered the 2017 world championship trials and needed to win to make it to the finals. She finished in second.“I felt like if I could train in it for the fall and spring, I could be a lot better,” she said. “That’s what I did.” She punched her ticket to Paris this summer and last week returned to the national team training facility in Princeton, where she now struts through the campus “more confident and assured of what she’s doing,” said Adrienne Martelli, who rowed with her at the Olympics in 2012. “I’m really excited for what’s to come for her.”
“Your path might change a little from what you thought, but there are life lessons in there, too,” she said.There’s a moment Jack Woll still thinks about when he was a freshman on the Princeton rowing team and competing in his first 6,000-meter race on a boiling summer’s day. “So much of the training is by yourself, dark mornings and late nights,” Woll said. “Hopefully on days like that, she’ll know that people care about her and we’re cheering for her. Whether she sees us or not.”
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