Van Blom Remembered

The city of Long Beach has dedicated a bridge at Jack Nichol Park to local sculling great Joan Lind Van Blom, a two-time Olympic silver medalist who died in 2015 after battling a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer. The Long Beach State graduate was the first American woman to win an Olympic medal, with a stunning silver-medal showing in the single at the Montreal Games in 1976. She matched that performance eight years later in the women’s quad in Los Angeles. The dedication ceremony for the Joan Lind Van Blom Memorial Bridge took place March 25.