2009 Female Athlete of the Year: Erin Cafaro
Photo: Erin Cafaro, by Peter Spurrier
What cover curse? Earlier this summer, we (presciently) featured U.S. Olympic gold medalist Erin Cafaro on the cover of this magazine. It was an easy call: The 26-year-old Modesto, Calif. resident and rowing partner Susan Francia had just delivered an emphatic 3.45-second trials victory in the pair, setting the stage for a history-making performance at the worlds in Poland. With Cafaro and Francia also doubling up in the eight, the U.S. stood a good chance of nabbing gold in both women’s Olympic sweep events, taking a page directly out of the playbook of archrivals Romania, who rowed to double gold in the pair and eight at the Athens Olympics.
Winning, however, wouldn’t come easy in either event. On the first day of finals, Cafaro and Francia edged a young combination from Romania by a mere 0.36 seconds with New Zealand a fraction of a second back in third. Rejoining the eight the following day, they helped power the United States to a 1.6-second victory in a barnburner against—you guessed it—Romania. These results alone are enough to earn Cafaro athlete of the year, but there’s another reason we like her: at 5’9, she’s the smallest rower in the U.S. women’s camp, yet she still manages to pull one of the best ergs on the squad. “She has every reason not to be good,” says coach Tom Terhaar, “and she doesn’t let that get in her way.”
Honorable Mention: Ekaterina Karsten After finishing a surprising third in Beijing behind Bulgaria’s Rumyana Neykova and American Michelle Guerette, Ekaterina Karsten returned to the top of the women’s single field at the 2009 world championships. Karsten successfully defended her world title in her first and only international regatta of the season. Notably absent from this year’s women’s single field were Neykova, who finished in third in the double, and Guerette, now a coach at Boston’s Union Boat Club.
By Ed Winchester
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