Virginia’s unexpected Olympian

A trip to the dentist can have a number of outcomes. None of them are usually very good.

But Kevin Sauer’s visits to the tooth doctor in 1999 may result in Lindsay Shoop taking home Olympic gold in Beijing next month.

It was at a Charlottesville dentist’s office where Sauer met Lindsay’s mother. Bali Shoop, a dental hygienist, mentioned to Sauer that she had a tall, athletic daughter who would be attending Virginia that fall.

Sauer, the women’s rowing coach at UVa, suggested Lindsay come out for the rowing team.

Shoop, a standout volleyball and basketball player at The Covenant School (she had also previously dabbled in field hockey, soccer and swimming) wound up taking Sauer up on his offer — but not until over two years later after a chance meeting with him on Virginia’s campus.

“I knew UVa had a really good team,” recalled Shoop. “I thought, ‘Why would they want me?’

“He said, ‘Hey Lindsay, it’s never too late to row.’”

Shoop was in the middle of her junior year at UVa, hadn’t played any competitive sports since her high school days and had never rowed.

That, however, didn’t stop Sauer from believing that she could excel in the sport — mainly because of her athleticism and her 6-foot frame.

That spring, Shoop rowed with the novice team. In the fall of her senior year, she was elevated to the junior varsity squad. A few months later, she had earned a spot on the Varsity Eight squad.

The long-legged Shoop was a natural.

“In rowing, most of your power is generated from your legs,” Shoop explained. “A lot of people don’t realize that. The longer the legs, the bigger muscles you have and the more power you’re able to push.”

After graduating from Virginia in 2003, Shoop attended a USA Rowing camp. Following an impressive performance, she was invited to train full-time in Princeton, N.J.

Even then, Shoop says she never really thought about someday competing in Olympics.

“At that point, you have to take every day one step at a time,” she said. “I was pretty much at the bottom and just gradually climbed my way up through the year.”

At the world championships in 2005, Shoop came in fourth in the Eight and sixth in Pairs.

But just a year later her boat won the Eight, shattering a world record in the process by 12 seconds.

Then, this past year, Shoop’s boat won its second straight Eight title.

By finishing within the top five, Shoop’s boat earned an automatic bid to this summer’s Olympics.

Still, that didn’t ensure a trip to Beijing until coach Tom Terharr named her to the squad.

Remarkably, the 26-year-old Shoop is one of three former Virginia rowers who will be competing in the Games. Wyatt Allen (2001) — who won a gold medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens — is a member of the U.S. Men’s Varsity Eight, while Melanie Kok (2007) will be competing in Lightweight Women’s Doubles for Canada.

“People have no idea that CVa kids, rowing here in the reservoir — that they’re world-class athletes and are doing this kind of thing,” Sauer said. “These kids are on the Olympic team. They made it. They’re all going to Beijing and all three have really good chances to medal or even gold medal. It’s just a really cool thing.”

Shoop leaves for Beijing on July 25. The Olympics begin on Aug. 8, with the rowing events set for Aug. 9-17.

Sauer believes Shoop’s boat has a “really good chance” at the gold.

“I think they can,” he said. “Nothing obviously is guaranteed, but they’ve won the last two world championships.”

“It’s not too crazy,” said Shoop, with a chuckle. “Just being American, we want to win everything. I think our goal is always to go out there and go as fast as we possibly can.

“Everyone will be really good and really fast. We’ve raced some of our competition already, but you never know if they’ll shuffle their lineups or pick up speed…we try and not to worry too much about everyone else.”

Shoop’s parents, Paul and Bali, will make the trip to Beijing, along with her brother and a cousin. When Shoop talks about competing in the games, it’s obvious that she has made a conscious effort not to get caught up in the hoopla surrounding the festivities.

“You have to take every day one step at a time because you’re still training and it’s a race — you’re going there to race,” Shoop said. “But sometimes you don’t realize exactly how grand it is.

“You start seeing something on NBC or reading [the newspaper] and you say out loud to yourself, ‘Whoa, we’re going to the Olympics!’ But then you kind of remind yourself to come back down from that because you’re still training and need to keep doing what you’re doing every day.”

Shoop, who has only been rowing since 2002, says she often thinks about what she’d be doing right now if Sauer hadn’t convinced her to give the sport a try.

“I thank him for just being persistent and being himself,” she said. “Kevin is absolutely an amazing coach and a great person.

“I owe a lot of where I am to him — even though he’ll say it wasn’t him. It was a chain reaction and he got the ball rolling.”

All thanks to a couple of trips to the dentist.