Photo courtesy of Brett Johnson, USRowing

Kamiak grad Ashley Kroll, of Edmonds, and Felice Mueller, of Cleveland, race in a pair heat at the Under-23 Rowing World Championships in Brest, Belarus on Saturday. They beat Romania, the defending champion, to win gold and set a new world record.

Ashley Kroll still gets goose bumps when she thinks of the gold medal she won in rowing at the Under-23 World Championships.

Kroll, a 2006 Kamiak High School grad, won gold for the United States in the women’s pair with rowing partner Felice Mueller, from Cleveland, in the 2010 Under-23 Rowing World Championships on July 24 in Brest, Belarus.

“It makes me emotional because it was a struggle,” she said.  “For every minute in a race, we do about five and a half hours of training. There’s so much that you put into it for that seven or six minutes of racing.”

With the victory, Kroll and Mueller beat Romania’s defending champions to be the first U.S. pair to win gold in the Under-23 World Championships – and set a new world record.
 
Kroll and Mueller advanced to the finals on July 22 by placing first in their heat with a time of 7:22.56, the fastest time of any crew in the pair heats.

The two trained at the USRowing Under-23 National Team camp for 10 weeks, starting June 1. They qualified for the World Championships at the end of June by winning a pair race at Mercer Lake in Princeton, N.J.

Kroll, 22, and Mueller, 20, are both on the University of Michigan rowing team, and have rowed together in the eight for UM for the past two years.

“The U.S. has traditionally done well in the bigger boats, and we haven’t always done well in the smaller boats, and so to win the pair and then to set a record time is really a great accomplishment,” said Mark Roghstein, the UM rowing coach.  “I’m really proud of them.”

It was Kroll’s second trip to the Under-23 World Championships.  Last summer, she won silver in the eight at the World Championships.

For Mueller, it was her first Under-23 World Championships.  She won bronze in the eight at the 2007 Junior World Championships and gold in the eight at the 2007 USRowing Club National.

In their pair race on July 24, Kroll and Mueller had nearly a five-second lead in the first 1,000 meters and held on to defeat Romania’s Nicoleta Albu and Adelina Cojocariu by 0.31 seconds, setting a new record of 7:14.07. They broke the old record by 0.87 seconds.

“[When] they started moving, and they were dead even with us, I just remember telling Felice, ‘Go! We’ve got to go!’” Kroll said.  “And for a good 45 seconds to a minute on the last leg of the race, we went as hard as we could.  It was like a Hail Mary.”

Romania won silver with 7:14.38, while Germany won bronze with 7:23.70.

Kroll was on Kamiak’s softball team before she quit to row on the Everett Rowing Association club team.  She said it was difficult for her to trade softball for rowing – for nine years it had been her sport – but that ultimately she fell in love with rowing.

Her goal now is to make it to the Olympics.  Once she finishes her schooling, Kroll is going to train with the National Team with the hopes of getting into a boat by the 2012 Olympics.

Phil Falk, who was Kroll’s P.E. teacher at Picnic Point Elementary, has followed her in rowing since she started as a junior at Kamiak. 

He said he isn’t surprised that Kroll won gold in rowing and is looking to join the National Team.

“She’s got her sights on the Olympics, and I think she can do it,” he said.  “She’s definitely goal-oriented, she trains hard, she has a tremendous attitude and she believes in herself.

“She’s probably the poster child of any P.E. student that I’ve ever had because that’s what I hope they do is believe in themselves that they can do anything that they really, truly want to do.”

Kroll said the enormity of winning gold and setting a new record in the Under-23 World Championships hasn’t hit her because it wasn’t the Olympics.

“I really appreciate it. I know it’s a big deal, but I don’t really think of it as an accomplishment because it’s not the top of the top,” she said. 

“I’m not satisfied. I want to get stronger, faster for the National Team.”