Feature: Iraqi crew program trains in Princeton

That week, the Princeton boathouse hosted the Iraqi national rowing team, which practiced in the boathouse and on Lake Carnegie while training with the U.S. national team. The Iraqi team is currently on a rowing tour of the United States, spending six weeks training in Princeton, Boston and Cincinnati while learning and working with established crew programs.

While Princeton rowers may take for granted the tranquility of Lake Carnegie, the Iraqi rowers noticed the stark contrast between the peaceful surroundings and their previous practice area on the Tigris River, near war-torn Baghdad. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, rower Ahmed Abdul Salam said that during a rowing session several years ago on the river, suspicious American soldiers began shooting at the rowers and arrested them.

“To the soldiers, we must be terrorists,” Salam said to Sports Illustrated. “One said to us, ‘You come to explode the bridge. You must be stopped.’ The idea of using this place to practice sport made no sense.”

The idea for bringing the Iraqi rowers to America came from Bill Engeman, an elderly crew advocate from Cincinnati, and Bruce Smith, a former coach of the U.S. national team. Convinced of the importance of bringing the foreign rowers to American shores, the two traveled to Iraq to lead a rowing clinic with a larger contingent of the Iraqi crew. In an effort to promote the sport on an international level and show international goodwill, Smith invited the Iraqis to a series of stops and clinics in the United States. Smith contacted Greg Hughes ’96, head coach of the heavyweight crew, about using the Princeton boathouse as one of the training facilities, and Hughes was happy to oblige.

“We get to see somebody new coming into the facility, and it puts it into bigger perspective for the sport,” Hughes said. “It is just really cool to see what the sport can actually do and how far it reaches and seeing these guys have goals.”

In total, the Iraqi national team has six rowers, a coach and an administrator. The small, largely unexperienced squad contrasted sharply with the Tigers’ crews, which Hughes estimated have roughly 160 people.

Two of the Iraqi rowers, Haider Nawzad and Hamza Hussein Jebur, participated in the men’s double sculls event in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. They finished in last place in the event and made up half of the four delegates Iraq sent to the Olympics that year. The other four rowers make up a men’s lightweight boat. Both groups hope to be competitive, and they are attempting to compete in the 2010 Asian Games in China.

The U.S. national rowing team trains on Lake Carnegie alongside the Tiger crews. Despite the close quarters, the Iraqi squad had little interaction with the Princeton crews, as they were guests of the U.S. national team. Those crews practiced in the mornings and early afternoon, while Princeton’s squads trained in the late afternoon, and the two only seldom crossed paths.

“It was all pretty casual,” Hughes explained of the interactions between the Iraqis and students. “Guys would chat a little here and there. They would hang out and watch what was going on.”

The Iraqi national rowing team has come a long way since its inception, when its first boats arrived without oars. The rowers initially trained without any technique — a rowing faux-pas — until they received proper instruction from other countries’ coaches, including those from Egypt and Sweden.

The rowers will aim to change the existing dynamic of Iraq’s Olympic team, which has only won a single medal in its existence — a bronze for weightlifting in 1960. The Olympic team was previously run by Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday, who was known for torturing participants who failed to live up to expectations. The team was initially banned from participating in Beijing by the International Olympic Committee, and the two rowers were only invited after North Korea declined a spot in the double sculls competition.

The Iraqi rowing team’s training in the United States has become a large story, garnering features in Sports Illustrated and USA Today. The coverage has helped put rowing on a higher national profile.