DK's Five Rings: Polk, rowing, dominance ... and my backyard?

Aug 7, 2016 • 9:21 pm

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RIO DE JANEIRO -- When Amanda Polk was rowing in my back yard, it was no big deal.

Oh, she did, for real.

The Three Rivers Rowing Club, based on the Allegheny River island where my family has lived for a dozen years, does the bulk of its on-water work in the immediate area. So it's common every morning, right with the sunrise, to hear the splashing of oars, the shouts of the coxswain and the fleeing of nearby geese as the crews work up and down the channel.

So yeah, I've seen her row. Countless times. But nothing like what Monday morning will bring.

Polk, a Bloomfield native in her first Olympics after being a crestfallen alternate for London, will join six other U.S. rowers, the stroke and the coxswain on what many observers feel is the single most dominant team in any sport at these Games. Even more than the NBA guys. Because not even the basketballers, men or women, can match U.S. rowing's 10 consecutive international championships, including the previous two Olympics.

Small wonder Sports Illustrated in July dubbed them 'The Unbeatables,' with the above photo as the accompanying two-page spread.

There are two heats this morning, beginning at 9:30 a.m. Bloomfield time. The winner of each heat earns a spot in the final Saturday. The rest go through what's known as the repechage process, meaning they have to climb back through a loser's bracket.

THE GLOBAL HEADLINE

Put Michael Phelps and Olympics in the same sentence, and chances are excellent you've got the headline of the day at any Games.

So when he followed Katie Ledecky's breathtaking run to gold in the 400 free late Sunday night, only he could have topped it. And he did, with his unbelievable 15-meter underwater thrust off the wall defining the U.S. men's 4x100 relay gold. Then with his impish reaction to his 19th gold by rubbing the head of Ryan Held, who was moved to tears by the playing of our national anthem: