Megan Kalmoe, a Minneapolis native raised in St. Croix Falls, Wis., was named to the U.S. Olympic rowing team and will compete in the women's quadruple sculls at the London Games.
Kalmoe rowed in the double sculls in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and finished fifth. She won a silver medal in the quadruple sculls at the 2011 world rowing championships in Slovenia along with two of her Olympic teammates, Adrienne Martelli and Natalie Dell. Kara Kohler was named as the fourth member of the group for the Olympics.
Kalmoe, 28, has trained at the U.S. Rowing Training Center in Princeton, N.J., for the past several years. Her family lives in the Twin Cities, and her sister Molly was captain of the Gophers rowing team last season.
RACHEL BLOUNT
Pole vault mark toppedA pole vaulter from Buffalo topped the all-time Minnesota high school record with a vault of 15 feet, 9 inches last Saturday at the USA Track and Field Junior Olympics meet.
Mitch Valli, who will be a senior at Buffalo High School but was competing last weekend with the Zero Gravity vaulting club, cleared the height on his first try at the meet at Eagan High School. The vault tops the mark of 15 feet, 8 inches set by Macauley Spandl of Moorhead in 2010.
Valli credited a fun, relaxed atmosphere at meet, which had been delayed by rain earlier in the day. He and two champions from last month's state meet -- Lee Bares of Lakeville South and Grant Krieger of Blake -- had already qualified for the regional meet. After Valli and Bares cleared 15-4, breaking a 30-year-old meet record, they decided to set the bar at an inch above the state mark.
As Valli headed down the runway, he was accompanied by a dramatic accelerated clap from fans and onlookers.
