Rower and Dartmouth alum Dominic Seiterle '98 won his first gold medal yesterday! Seiterle and the rest of the Canadian men's eights rowing team, Andrew Byrnes, Kyle Hamilton, Malcolm Howard, Adam Kreek, Kevin Light, Ben Rutledge, Jake Wetzel and cox Brian Pric, had the quickest time of five minutes 23.89 seconds in the heavyweight division.

Britain and the US took the silver and bronze respectively.

Seiterle returned to rowing in 2007 following a seven-year layoff after his attendance at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. He finished 13th in men's doubles rowing at the Sydney Games of 2000, and more recently, won gold in the World Rowing Championship.

The road hasn't been an easy one for Seiterle, whose history is riddled with health problems. In 1997, Seiterle was diagnosed with thyroid cancer while at Dartmouth. But he managed to recover and ended up as captain of the heavyweight crew team his seniro year. Then in the summer of 2004, he was hospitalized with a sudden and rare blood infection that nearly took his life.

Seiterle, who graduated with a Bachelors in psychology and environmental studies from Dartmouth and holds an M.B.A. from the University of Rochester, works as a communications officer for the Canadian government. Talk about talented.

[Link]