Melissa Ryan

Melissa "Missy" C. Ryan , born Melissa Schwen , (born July 17, 1972 in Bloomington , Indiana ) is an American rower who won two Olympic medals.

Athletic career

The 1.72 m tall Melissa Schwen started rowing. She rowed at Georgetown University and Indiana University Bloomington . Her short international career began at the 1995 World Championships when she and Karen Kraft competed in a two-man team without a helmsman . The two Americans won the silver medal behind the Australians Kate Slatter and Megan Still . At the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, both the Australians and the Americans won their preliminary run. In the semifinals, Kraft and Schwen won with a three second lead over the Australians, in the final Still and Slatter won with a lead of 39 hundredths of a second.

After a four-year break and her name change through marriage, Melissa Ryan started together with Karen Kraft in the 2000 Rowing World Cup , the two of them finished fifth in Lucerne. At the Olympic Games , they qualified for the final via the repechage . There the Americans fought against Kate Slatter and her new partner Rachael Taylor for the medals behind the Romanians Georgeta Damian and Doina Ignat . The Romanians won by one and a half seconds, the Australians 44 hundredths of a second ahead of Kraft and Ryan.

literature

• Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. Chronicle IV. Seoul 1988 - Atlanta 1996. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-328-00830-6 .

Web links

• Melissa Ryan in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Melissa Ryan at Worldrowing.com ( FISA database )