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• Tom Aggar (GBR)
• Caryn Davies (USA)
• Katherine Grainger (GBR)
• Eleanor Logan (USA)
• Greg Searle (GBR)
• Andrew T Hodge (GBR)

Created in 1990, the Thomas Keller Medal celebrates athletes who have had an outstanding career in rowing. It honours those who have shown exemplary sportsmanship and technical mastery of the sport as well as having shown a legendary aspect both in and outside of their rowing career.
Finalists Bios
Tom Aggar – Great Britain
Aggar is a legend of para-rowing. He first raced internationally in 2007 and instantly found success, beginning a winning streak that lasted for the next four years. This included Aggar winning gold in the para men’s single sculls at the 2008 Paralympic Games. This was the debut Games for para-rowing. Aggar continued through to the London 2012 Paralympic Games, but missed out on a medal. He persisted and came back to take bronze the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games before retiring.
Caryn Davies – United States
Davies is described as the epitome of the scholar-athlete. Having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Harvard University in 2005 and a Doctor of Law degree from Columbia University in 2013, she also was twice Olympic Champion and a four-time World Champion between 2002 and 2012. She has stroked the USA women’s eight repeatedly since its winning streak began in 2006 and helped the boat set two World Best Times. Davies then went on to do an MBA at Oxford University in Great Britain and during that time she stroked the women’s Oxford boat to victory in the 2015 Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.
Katherine Grainger – Great Britain
Grainger is Great Britain’s most decorated female Olympian with five Olympic medals including gold from the London 2012 Olympic Games. These medals show Grainger’s all-round brilliance and longevity in the sport having won Olympic medals in the women’s quadruple sculls, pair and double sculls. Grainger also has won eight medals at the World Rowing Championships. Off the water Grainger achieved a PhD in law and, now retired, stays actively involved in rowing.
Eleanor Logan – United States
Logan became the United States’ greatest Olympic women’s rower after winning her third consecutive Olympic gold at the Rio 2016 Olympics. These medals all came from being part of the formidable US women’s eight. But Logan has also competed in other boats including the women’s single, pair and four at World Championship level.
Greg Searle – Great Britain
Between 1990 and 2000 Searle raced at three Olympic Games and at seven World Rowing Championships. During this time he won Olympic gold in 1992 and Olympic silver in 1996 as well as five World Championship medals in a variety of sweep boat classes, from the eight to the four to the coxed pair, as well as in one sculling event, the men’s single sculls. Following a fourth-place finish in the men’s pair at the Sydney Games, Searle retired from the sport for nine years, only to come back and compete at the highest level of competition in his late thirties. He finished his rowing career by medalling at the London 2012 Olympic Games, 20 years after competing at his first Olympic Games in 1992.
Andrew T Hodge – Great Britain
A three-time Olympic Champion, Hodge has been a mainstay among Great Britain’s elite squad for 15 years. This was despite a bout of illness that saw Hodge having to fight to get back into his country’s top boats in 2016. He managed to swap successfully between the men’s eight, four and pair during his career which ended with gold in the men’s eight at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
The winner will be announced on 29 June 2017 and awarded at the 2017 World Rowing Cup III in Lucerne, Switzerland on Saturday evening, 8 July 2017. During the award ceremony, an 18-carat gold medal will be bestowed by Dominik Keller, the son of FISA’s former president Thomas Keller, to the winner.
For a full list of winners, please click here. http://www.worldrowing.com/athletes/thomas-keller-medal

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In the junior events, California crews seem to always wind up in the grand final. In the women’s varsity eight grand final in 2016, six of the eight crews were from the golden state. Saugatuck Rowing, being the exception, had no problem taking the first place slot in the 2016 women’s junior eight event and will have their eyes set on gold again this year, no doubt. On the junior men’s side look for Marin and Oakland in the top three finishers of the men’s high school varsity eight grand final.

Check back Saturday and Sunday following racing for a recap of the day.

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Harvard men’s heavyweight coach Charley Butt, former University of Washington coach and program director Bob Ernst, current Washington women’s coach Yaz Farooq, and New York Athletic Club rowing chairman Rob Milam join athletes Megan Kalmoe and Dan Walsh, whose terms wrap up later this year. Milam will serve as chair of the committee.

According to a press release, the board of directors chose to reform the committee with eyes toward 2020 and beyond after a high-performance task force reviewed results from the Rio Olympic Games. The move, it should be noted, came following the resignation of four board members. Not long after, longtime CEO Glenn Merry announced he would be stepping down effective April 15.

The new voices come at a time when the U.S. men look to reclaim spaces on the medal stand and the U.S. women hope to extend their unprecedented string of success. Additionally, the vote at FISA Congress in February to replace the lightweight men’s four with a women’s four gives the new committee more fodder for conversation in the months and years ahead.

“This group is qualified and, without a doubt, will lead us with insight and experience through the next quadrennial,” said Matt Imes, USRowing’s director of high performance.

Now in place, the committee is tasked specifically with helping “in the development and implementation of all plans and programs for identifying and selecting elite athletes to represent the United States in international competition.” Each new member has a resume befitting the task at hand.

Butt and Ernst each have coached in four separate Olympics, with Butt coaching Michelle Guerette to silver in the single in 2008 and Ernst guiding the U.S. women’s eight to gold in 1984. Farooq is a two-time Olympic coxswain and won four medals at world championships in the eight, including gold in 1995. Milam competed on two U.S. national teams in 2003 and 2011 and has managed rowing at NYAC since 2013.

USRowing’s new committee takes the reins as the United States prepares to host the world championships for the first time since 1994 in Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida.

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But times, and tastes, change. And when it came to choosing between long-overdue gender parity and preserving an event that, however exciting, failed to meaningfully increase universality, the decision was clear.

Many didn’t see it that way. In the days that followed the FISA Extraordinary Congress, my Facebook feed was overrun with posts decrying all that was lost with the decision. None, however, considered what was gained.
For one, the change likely strengthened rowing’s position in the eyes of the International Olympic committee, which in the Agenda 2020 era, is a good thing. But more importantly, there are now four additional seats for women’s sweep.
I think back to what it was like when I learned that lightweights could race at the Olympics, and I can’t help but feel there are athletes out there who look at the increased opportunity in the same way.
As for lightweight sweep, I am less hopeful. It’s hard to argue we’re better off today than before the start of this Olympic experiment. But traditions run deep in this sport, and like the women’s four, there’s no ruling out a comeback.

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