Swimmer Rogulj to represent Croatia

The past and future of Virginia athletics will be on display at the National Aquatics Center during the Beijing Olympics.
A former UVa swimmer and an incoming freshman will compete for other countries during the Games. Vanja Rogulj, who swam for Cavaliers coach Mark Bernardino from 2004-07, will compete in his third Olympics for his home country of Croatia in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke and 400 medley relay. He is the Croatian national record holder in the former event.
Rogulj, 25, earned ACC swimmer of the year honors in 2005 and was the league’s freshman of the year in 2004, winning four consecutive ACC titles in the 200 breaststroke and three straight in the 100 breaststroke.
Erika Stewart, an incoming freshman from Jordan High in Durham, N.C., will swim the 200 women’s individual medley for Colombia, where her father was born. Stewart, 18, has lived in the United States her entire life, but has dual citizenship and trained with the Colombian national team in 2006.
“I was going to spend the summer in Colombia with my family so I could experience the culture and the language,” said Stewart, who is competing in her first Olympics. “Of course, I would just be training in the town, but then my dad and I wanted to take things further and see if I could compete with the Colombian team.
“They insisted on me having dual citizenship, so that spring, my dad and I flew to Atlanta to apply and see if it could happen. Once I got my Colombian passport, it was then up to my dad to communicate with the federation and set everything up.”
A gem of a player
Former UVa standout Ruby Rojas will take a break from her duties as head softball coach at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Calif., to play for her native Venezuela in Beijing.
Rojas, a third baseman, played for the Cavs from 2000-03. She ranks among UVa’s career top 10 in 19 categories, and her 25 home runs and 141 runs place her third on each list. She was a three-time All-ACC pick and was named the league’s rookie of the year in 2001.
Rojas, 27, was born in Maracay, Venezuela, but attended Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, Calif.
Venezuela is coming off a silver-medal performance in the 2007 Pan-American games and will participate in the Olympics for the first time. Rojas and her teammates are the first South American team to compete in Olympic softball.
Horse tales
Gordonsville’s Bonnie Mosser had a chance to make her Olympic debut, but she’ll return home after only getting halfway there.
Mosser, 45, was named an alternate to the U.S. eventing team for the Olympic equestrian competition set to take place in Hong Kong. She traveled with the team to Barbury Castle in England but will return home after her mount, Merloch, sustained a minor injury.
She earned her spot riding Merloch, an 11-year-old
thoroughbred gelding, at the Fork Stables in Norwood, N.C., in July. Mosser has been a member of the U.S. Equestrian Federation Eventing High Performance Development Squad for the past five years. This would have been her first Olympic appearance.
Another local athlete has a chance to compete in equestrian in Beijing, but this one won’t be quoted in The Daily Progress. Woodburn, a
13-year-old thoroughbred gelding, is the alternate mount for Phillip Dutton, the top-ranked rider in the U.S. and a two-time Olympic gold medalist. Woodburn is owned by Acorn Hill Farm in Madison County.