Gevvie Stone, M14, to compete on U.S. Rowing Team in single sculls; two alums qualify for the games, too
Medical Student Qualifies for Olympics
Tufts medical student Genevra “Gevvie” Stone earned her place on the U.S. Olympic Rowing Team on May 23, during a qualifier known as rowing’s “regatta of death.” A single sculler, Stone, M14, nabbed the third of four U.S. qualifying spots at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland.
“It feels awesome,” Stone said after the race. “I’ve dreamt about this for so long. I had a good race out there today. [There were] some really tough competitors, and I’m psyched.”
Beating out scullers from Estonia and Ireland, Stone finished the 2,000-meter race in 7 minutes and 45.91 seconds, just six seconds behind Australia’s Kim Crow, the winner, and three seconds behind second-place finisher Fie Udby Erichsen from Denmark.
This was Stone’s second attempt to qualify for the London Games. She fell short in 2010, when she was a full-time medical student. She took an official leave from Tufts to train full time for a shot at the Olympics. An aspiring orthopedic surgeon, Stone aims to return to medical school and graduate with the class of 2014.
Stone and the rest of the U.S. Olympic Rowing Team will compete over eight days, beginning on Saturday, July 28, at Eton Dorney Rowing Centre at Dorney Lake, roughly 18 miles west of London. Set in a 400-acre park within a nature conservation area, the rowing venue is known as one of the world’s finest.
Tufts also has a pair of 2012 Olympians in another water sport: two alumni of Coach Ken Legler’s sailing team will be competing. Mark Mendelblatt, A95, who earned his second Olympics berth, will skipper a United States Star boat in races to be held on Weymouth Bay on England’s south coast. A three-time All-American at Tufts, Mendelblatt competed in the 2004 Athens Olympics in the Laser class and placed eighth. U.S. Sailing named him Athlete of the Year for the second time.
Zander Kirkland, A07, also an All-American performer for the Jumbos, will crew for his brother Jesse representing Bermuda in the 49ers class at the Olympics. They became the first Bermudian skiff sailors to qualify for the Olympics.
Watch a video interview with Gevvie Stone right after she punched her ticket to London.
Read the Tufts Now story about Stone and her Olympic dreams.
Jacqueline Mitchell can be reached at jacqueline.mitchell@tufts.edu.
