Racing this summer at a major international crew regatta, Betsy Mitchell beat top women rowers from all over the world. But she doesn't consider herself a rower.
"I'm still a swimmer who rows," says the Women's Swimming Head Coach, an Olympic gold medalist- in swimming.
In the U.S. national crew trials this May for theupcoming World Championships, Mitchell placed 4th in single competition. She is a sculler, pulling two oars in a scull boat built for one, two or four rowers.
With her partner, a 1991 Harvard graduate, she placed second in the double event, just missing qualification for the World Championship, to be held in Prague in the fall.
In late June she rowed in the U.S. Rowing Nationals in Indianapolis, placing sixth in the women's 2000 meter and first in the women's 500 meter dash. In double competition she placed fourth.
In July, Mitchell and her partner placed fifth in the Lucerne International Regatta in Switzerland, beating the pair that won the U.S. trials in May. She is now preparing for the Canadian Henley in early August.
At age 18, Mitchell won a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. She won the gold in the 400 meter medley relay and a silver medal in the 100 meter backstroke. In the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea, she won a silver medal in the same relay event.
"It was a rush," she says, adding that in her small home town in Ohio, people did not treat her differently after she came home with a gold medal.
She held the world record in the 200 meter backstroke for six years until it was beaten in 1991.
As an undergraduate at the University of Texas, Mitchell led her team to four straight undefeated seasons and NCAA Division I championships.
She came to Dartmouth in the fall of 1990. At that time, the women's swim team had not won a meet in several years, and had not won an Ivy League contest in nine years.
In Mitchell's first year as head coach, the team went 2-9, and the next two years split their seasons 5-5.
According to Mitchell, Dartmouth has not had a winning women's swim team in the two decades since co-education. But she is excited for the upcoming season and has high hopes for the incoming swimmers in the Class of 1997.
"They are well balanced between all strokes. It's the strongest freshman class that's been around in a while," she says. "There are also key players returning. It's going to be a pretty exciting season."
"We've got a shot at the first winning season ever for women's swimming,"Mitchell says.
It was her own world-class swimming that led Mitchell to her first interest in crew. At the 1988 games in Seoul she met some members of the U.S. women's crew team and watched their race.
Two years later she moved to Hanover from Texas and asked the women's crew coach to teach her the sport. The next year she bought her own boat and after two years of practice, she is challenging the world's best.
Mitchell won't say which sport she likes better, only that they are "just different."
"Crew is more mechanical," she says. "In swimming you finesse your power through the water."
"I really consider crew my hobby," Mitchell says. "My job and the team come first."
