DeFrantz to Make Rowing Return

For the first time in many years, Anita DeFrantz will be row, row, rowing a boat in competition.

And for the 47-year-old vice president of the International Olympic Committee, the first female to reach that rank in the IOC’s 106-year history, her appearance Sunday on Lake Merritt in Oakland will leave her both goose-bumpy and breathless.

“This is really an honor, really a thrill,” said DeFrantz, of Los Angeles, president of the Los Angeles Amateur Athletic Foundation. “And I even expect to live through it.”

She will row during the National Masters Rowing Championships, and her presence in one seat of the Women’s Eight boat, joining seven other competitors who will row for the U.S. team next month in the Sydney Olympics, is the brainchild of U.S. Rowing Coach Hartmut Buschbacher.

He knew her story, her rowing background, and even the irony of having her row in Oakland, on the same lake. “He kept terrorizing me with phone calls and e-mail until I broke down and said I’d do it,” DeFrantz said Wednesday.

In 1974, DeFrantz had finished college and, instead of taking her law degree to the courtroom, decided to join the famous Vespers rowing team. Her first national competition, on Lake Merritt, was later that year, but she was not on the Vespers elite team and, as a rookie, didn’t know all that was going on. Because she was a rookie, they let her race, but only in what is known as a “weary.” She was put in a singles boat difficult to row. Hers didn’t have a fin and it was all she could do just to finish.

“I was so proud that I got across the finish line,” she said. “They were all laughing and I had no idea why.”

Two years later, she not only made the Vespers team but the Olympic Eight for Montreal, where she and her U.S. team turned in a shocking bronze-medal finish.

Now, for the first time in a very long time, DeFrantz will be back in a U.S. Eight, and it will be a boat that now, regularly, does sub 3-minutes for the 1,000 meters, substantially below 1976 times.

“This is the noblest sport of all,” DeFrantz said. “I’ll be ready.”

So will the paramedics.