Hearn, Jacobi to Float Olympic Hopes in Trials
By Amy
Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2000; Page D10
It would be such a heartwarming story: the 40-year-old paddling legend from Bethesda winning a place on his third Olympic team along with his protégé, a 30-year-old from Bethesda who won a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics.
Davey Hearn and Joe Jacobi are, after all, considered No. 1 and No. 2 in the men's solo canoe going into this weekend's Olympic trials in slalom canoe and kayak in Ducktown, Tenn. Jacobi idolized Hearn as a teenager, comparing the experience of paddling with him on the Potomac to playing baseball with Joe DiMaggio and Babe Ruth.
No need to run for a box of tissues, however. Both men won't be going to the Sydney Games. For the first time since canoe and kayak returned to the Olympics in 1992 after a 20-year absence, there is only one U.S. Olympic spot available in men's single canoe.
Which means Jacobi likely will be Hearn's major competition for probably his last chance to compete in an Olympics. Despite the competitive situation, both display nothing but goodwill about the three-day competition that begins today along the Ocoee River.
"If Joe made the Olympic team and went on to win the gold medal, I'd be incredibly pleased," said Hearn, whose sister, Cathy, is a favorite to win the lone spot in the women's single kayak. "I'm sure Joe would be just as pleased if I was able to make the team and go on to win a gold medal. We're all in it together."
Said Jacobi, a graduate of Churchill High who resides in Ducktown, Tenn., and owns a bed-and-breakfast there with his wife, Lisa: "What I want most is for everybody to go out and have the best race. I think we all want the best boat in Sydney."
The 40 or so athletes will be competing for just three Olympic spots. Besides the men's canoe, Olympic team positions also will be awarded in the men's and women's solo kayak.
A decision by the organizers of the 2000 Sydney Olympics to limit the size of the field, combined with a relatively poor performance by U.S. athletes at last year's world championships, cut in half the number of spots available to U.S. athletes compared with the Olympic field in 1996. The U.S. team will be only about a third of the size of the squad sent to Barcelona in 1992, when each country was allowed to enter three boats per event.
Sydney organizers threatened to eliminate the sport as a way of keeping the total number of participants to around 10,000. Instead, canoe and kayak spots were trimmed to make room for new sports such as taekwondo and triathlon.
The Olympic team will be determined this weekend by adding each athlete's results from the three days, dropping out the lowest day from the total.
Hearn, a graduate of Walter Johnson High School, won his 18th national championship in the solo canoe last year. His first national title came in 1976, when Jacobi was 7. Hearn underwent arthroscopic shoulder surgery last fall and said he has recovered fully. "I'm a big believer in that you don't retire until you retire," he said, asked about the possibility that this would be his last Olympic trials. "I don't even really like using the 'R' word."
Jacobi, who won a gold medal in the double canoe and switched to the solo after his partner, Scott Strausbaugh, retired, failed to make the Olympic team at the 1996 trials. But he seems to have mastered the single canoe, and last year finished second to Hearn at the national championships. Jacobi said he has never felt better physically or mentally.
"I feel like I've never been paddling better, I've never been happier doing the sport," Jacobi said. "I think it's going to be a great race [this weekend]. It has so many meanings."
© The Washington Post 2000
