John Biglow (born December 20, 1957) is a retired American
rower
Rowing, sometimes called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars are attached to the boat using oarlocks, while paddles are not connected to the boat. Rowing is ...
. Regarded as the best US
single sculler
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of the early 1980s, he competed and finished fourth in the
men's single sculls event at the
1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the sec ...
in Los Angeles.
Biography
Biglow was born in Seattle after his father, Lucius Horatio, Jr., and mother, Nancy (née Wheatland), moved there from the east coast in 1954. Biglow's grandfather,
Lucius Horatio Biglow
Lucius Horatio "Ray" Biglow III (''often spelled Bigelow''; February 28, 1885 – July 9, 1961) was an American football player and coach. He played right guard for Yale University from 1905 to 1907. He was selected as an All-American in both ...
, was a noted Yale football player.
He started
sweep-oar rowing (rowing with a single oar in a boat with teammates), while attending the
Lakeside School.
Biglow continued rowing at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
. There he contributed to its successes in competing against
Harvard University's rowing team, having proved that he was one the strongest oarsmen in the university's history on the
ergometer, a stationary rowing machine.
He graduated from Yale in 1980 with a degree in psychology.
He graduated as a
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...
from
Dartmouth Medical School
The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth is the graduate medical school of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The fourth oldest medical school in the United States, it was founded in 1797 by New England physician Nathan Smith. It is o ...
in 1989 and did residencies at
Rhode Island Hospital
Rhode Island Hospital is a private, not-for-profit hospital located in the Upper South Providence neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island. It is the largest academic medical center in the region, affiliated with Brown University since 1959. As ...
in
general medicine and
Massachusetts General Hospital in
anesthesiology
Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology, or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine, ...
.
After completing his medical training, Biglow became an anesthesiologist, practicing in Delaware and in Vermont.
Athletic career
After his high school and college experience in sweep-oar rowing, Biglow switched to solo sculling (rowing with two oars) in 1981.
He was the best US single sculler in the early 1980s.
He was noted as powerful finisher, whose muscles allowed increasing output towards the end of a race, whereas other competitors might tire towards the end.
A biopsy of his muscles suggested that his ability lay in having 72% slow-twitch muscles, compared with readings in the mid-60-percent range of his peers. His performance was compromised by chronic back pain.
Biglow began using a sliding-rigger single scull in 1982, which contributed to his personal best results.
Yale crew
Biglow rowed in Yale's men's varsity heavyweight boat from 1978 through 1980. In 1978 and 1979 Yale won the Eastern Sprints. The 1979 boat, with Biglow at stroke, raced at the
Henley Royal Regatta, triumphing over Oxford.
Single sculls
![HK LeeKaMan 2009EAG WomensSingleSculls BronzeMedal](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/HK_LeeKaMan_2009EAG_WomensSingleSculls_BronzeMedal.JPG)
He won bronze medals both at the 1981 and 1982
World Rowing Championships
The World Rowing Championships is an international rowing regatta organized by FISA (the International Rowing Federation). It is a week-long event held at the end of the northern hemisphere summer and in non-Olympic years is the highlight of th ...
in Lucerne.
In 1982, Biglow held the course record in the Men's Championship Single for the
Head of the Charles Regatta
The Head of the Charles Regatta, also known as HOCR, is a rowing (sport), rowing head race held on the penultimate complete weekend of October (i.e., on the Friday that falls between the 16th and the 22nd of the month, and on the Saturday an ...
until it was bested by Norwegian, Kjetil Borch in 2013.
He raced against former six strong competitors in the May 1984 Olympic trials, winning the final race and a place on the team by 0.9 seconds.
He had shown up for Olympic training in Cambridge, Massachusetts without a boat to vie for the position. With some difficulty, he secured a boat and the cooperation of the coach. He placed well in other qualifying races and raced at Olympic camp in California against his international competition, which had arrived for the games. Feeling that his leg strength was less than a few years before and that his back was an issue, Biglow decided to repeat his usual strategy of rowing his own race—not responding unnecessarily to the progress of his competitors. Vying for a bronze medal, he came in fourth against a strong field, missing the medal by 1.62 seconds after a strong finish surge.
Double and quadruple sculls
![Double Sculls USA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Double_Sculls_USA.JPEG)
Biglow also competed at the 1983 World Championships in
quadruple sculls (gold medal) and at the 1985 championships in
double sculls.
He won a gold medal in double sculls with Greg Walker at the 1987 Pan American Games.
International race results
The World Rowing Federation summarizes Biglow's international race results, as follows:
Portrayals
A 1984 ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' survey of prospective Olympic athletes highlighted Biglow as a self-motivated, non-sponsored amateur athlete, devoted to his sport and the honor of competing against the world's best rowers.
David Halberstam
David Halberstam (April 10, 1934 April 23, 2007) was an American writer, journalist, and historian, known for his work on the Vietnam War, politics, history, the Civil Rights Movement, business, media, American culture, Korean War, and late ...
wrote about Biglow in a ''
Vanity Fair'' article, "Striver's Row", and a book, ''The Amateurs.''
The magazine article, with two portraits by
Annie Liebowitz, provides background on Biglow's Yale rowing career and the events leading to his 1984 Olympic performance.
Much of the material is reprised in the book.
The book describes, in part, Biglow's development as an oarsman. Halberstam highlights the personal and team dynamics that led up to Biglow's rowing event in the 1984 Summer Olympics, which included overcoming back pain, finding a suitable race boat, convincing his rowing coach that he should race as a single, and his status compared with other rowers. The book portrays him as having an ethos that included a strong drive to excel, combined with personal modesty, and a strong sense that the dignity of his fellow competitors should be respected and upheld.
The book explored the nature of amateur sports, wherein athletes are motivated not by money, but the will to excel.
He was portrayed in the movie, ''
Rowing Through
''Rowing Through'' is a Canadian- Japanese co-produced drama film, directed by Masato Harada and released in 1996. Based on David Halberstam's book ''The Amateurs'', the film centres on American sculler Tiff Wood as he tries to qualify for the 198 ...
'', a film adaptation of Halberstam's book.
Peter Mallory captured substantial reminiscences in dialog form from Biglow and his contemporaries in ''The Sport of Rowing: Plus ça change.''
Further reading
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Biglow, John
1957 births
Living people
American male rowers
Olympic rowers of the United States
Rowers at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Rowers from Seattle
Pan American Games medalists in rowing
Pan American Games gold medalists for the United States
Rowers at the 1987 Pan American Games
World Rowing Championships medalists for the United States