Redman heads to Olympics as alternate in rowing

Jamie Redman, a three-time team rowing world champion from Spokane, will be going to the Summer Olympic Games in London as the alternate for the U.S. women’s 8 rowing team.

The team selections were announced Friday afternoon after months of team training and trials in Princeton, N.J.

“It’s bittersweet,” Redman said in a telephone interview Friday night. “I was in that boat and now I’m not. I’m a maybe, but I’m going to the Olympics.”

The team will continue training in New Jersey before leaving July 16 for a pre-Olympic training camp in Germany. The Games open July 27.

Going into the winter training period, Redman was among the top half of the athletes contending for the eight positions.

On Jan. 25, however, she suffered a concussion and severe bruising in an automobile accident while at the U.S. Olympic Training Center near San Diego.

She could not work out for five weeks during an intense training period for the 16 elite athletes vying for the women’s 8 team.

Redman also was a two-time national champion rower at Yale University. In the past two years, she’s been in the U.S. boat that’s won five medals in World Cup competition.

She’s been in the boat that qualified the U.S. women’s 8 to be among the top seven teams in the world invited to compete in the 2012 Olympics.

Redman made a remarkable comeback from her injuries and was in the U.S. boat that set a women’s 8 world record last month at the 2012 Samsung World Rowing Cup II in Switzerland.

“There isn’t a single crew in the world who can match the American squad for strength, athleticism and heart,” Redman said.

The U.S. Team going to London will be defending its gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.