Caryn Davies

Caryn Davies (born April 14, 1982) is an American rower. She is the winner of the 2023 Thomas Keller Medal, the most prestigious international award in the sport of rowing, and the only American to have ever won this award. She won gold medals as the stroke seat of the U.S. women's eight at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics. In April 2015 Davies stroked Oxford University to victory in the first ever women's Oxford/Cambridge boat race held on the same stretch of the river Thames in London where the men's Oxford/Cambridge race has been held since 1829. She was the most highly decorated Olympian to take part in either [men's or women's] race. In 2012 Davies was ranked number 4 in the world by the International Rowing Federation. At the 2004 Olympic Games she won a silver medal in the women's eight. The 2008 U.S. women's eight, of which she was a part, was named FISA (International Rowing Federation) crew of the year. Davies is from Ithaca, New York, where she graduated from Ithaca High School, and rowed with the Cascadilla Boat Club. Davies was on the Radcliffe College (Harvard) Crew Team and was a member on Radcliffe's 2003 NCAA champion Varsity 8, and overall team champion. In 2013, she was a visiting student at Pembroke College, Oxford, where she stroked the college men's eight to a victory in both Torpids (spring intercollegiate races) and the Oxford University Summer Eights races (for the first time in Oxford rowing history). In 2013–14 Davies took up Polynesian outrigger canoeing in Hawaii, winning the State novice championship and placing 4th in the long-distance race na-wahine-o-ke-kai with her team from the Outrigger Canoe Club. In 2013, she was inducted into the New York Athletic Club Hall of Fame and in 2022 into the Harvard University Athletics Hall of Fame.

Caryn Davies was elected president of the United States Olympians and Paralympians Association (USOPA) in 2021. She previously served as a vice president from 2008-2012 and 2016-2019 . She also served as athlete representative to the USRowing Board of Directors from 2004-2010.

Davies has a degree from Harvard University (A.B. Psychology, 2005), a J.D. (Doctor of Law) from Columbia Law School (2013) and an MBA from Oxford University (2015). Davies is the most decorated Harvard Olympian in the sport of rowing. and is now an attorney in private practice.

Early career Davies was recruited into rowing at 12 years of age. She started rowing competitively a year later in Australia in 1996, at the Friends' School in Hobart. A local rowing club also recruited her into single sculling, where groups of teenagers launched off a beach into tidal estuarine waters. Within six months she was the Tasmanian under-15 single sculls champion. Returning from Australia she continued with Cascadilla Boat Club and the Ithaca High School rowing team. In 1998, as a 16-year-old she competed in the world's biggest rowing race, the Head of the Charles in Boston. Because she had already placed in the top three in a junior race at the Canadian Henley the summer before the race, officials insisted on placing her, as the only junior, into the championship category of top senior international rowers; she put up a creditable performance by placing 16th. The following summer (1999) she made her first national team, coming second in the US junior eight in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, followed by a gold medal in a four at the junior world championships in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2000, the first gold medal ever by US Junior women. Most national team training has been based in Princeton, New Jersey, where the US women's team shares a boathouse and a lake with Princeton University, whereas winter training was based in San Diego.

Davies has the ability to row starboard, port, or scull at an international level. At 6' 4" she was the tallest member of the U.S. Women's National Team. She was part of the U.S. Olympic women's eight that set a world record in the heat prior to a silver medal in the final in Athens, Greece. She was stroking the eight that repeated the feat in the World Cup in Lucerne in May 2012. As the most experienced oarsperson on the U.S. women's team she acted as a guiding figure: "Remember it's just like the World Championships – the same people doing the same thing – but with more flags."

As of 2019, Davies has won the C.R.A.S.H-Bs three times: first as a junior in 2000, She serves as the athlete demonstrating rowing technique in video for the Concept II rowing-machine. Davies also promotes youth fitness through World Fit and gives inspirational talks to youth groups.

Davies' hobbies include travel, sailing, downhill skiing, horseback riding, yoga, and ballroom dancing. 2019: World Rowing Championships, Linz-Ottensheim, Austria, women's four, 6th 2012: Olympic Games, London, England, women's eight, 1st (rowing stroke) gold medal 2012: Samsung World Rowing Cup II, Lucerne, women's eight, 1st, rowing stroke; world record (5:54.17 in the heat) no longer world record. 2011: FISA World Championships, women's pair, 8th 2011: FISA World Cup, Lucerne, women's eight, 1st 2011: Henley Royal Regatta, won the Princess Grace Challenge Cup (women's quadruple sculls) 2008: Olympic Games, Beijing, China, women's eight, 1st (rowing stroke) gold medal 2008: FISA World Cup, Lucerne, women's eight, 1st 2007: FISA World Championships, Munich, women's eight, 1st (rowing stroke) 2006: FISA World Championships, Lake Dorney, UK, women's eight, 1st (rowing stroke) 2006: FISA World Cup, Lucerne, women's eight, 2nd 2006: Henley Royal Regatta, won Remenham Cup (women's eight) 2005: FISA World Championships, women's quadruple sculls, 5th 2005: Bearing Point World Cup, Munich, women's quadruple sculls, 3rd 2004: Olympic Games, Athens, women's eight 2nd silver medal 2004: FISA World Cup, Munich, women's eight 1st 2004: FISA World Cup, Munich, women's pair 3rd 2004: FISA World Cup, Lucerne, women's eight 1st 2003: FISA World Championships, Milano, Italy, women's four without cox 1st 2002: FISA World Championships, Seville, Spain, women's eight 1st

Junior international

2005, C.R.A.S.H.-B. Indoor Championships, women's collegiate open weight, 1st 2000, C.R.A.S.H.-B. Indoor Championships, junior women, 1st

National results

2013: Stroked Oxford University women's eight to a win in the British University Rowing Championships 2013: Stroked Pembroke College Oxford men's eight to wins in Oxford University Torpids and Summer Eights 2006: Australian National Championships, women's senior A four, 2nd 2006: Australian National Championships, women's senior A quadruple sculls, 3rd 2005: Head of the Charles, women's double sculls, 1st 2005: NCAA Championships, women's varsity eight, 3rd 2003: NCAA Championships, women's varsity eight, 1st

Junior national

2000: USRowing Youth Invitational, junior women's single sculls champion 2000: Scholastic Rowing Association of America women's single sculls champion 2000: Stotesbury Regatta (juniors) women's single sculls champion 1999: Scholastic Rowing Association of America women's single sculls champion 1999: Stotesbury Regatta (juniors) women's single sculls champion 1997: State of Tasmania (Australia) under 15 girls single sculls champion