Canton girl earns gold as gymnast
Eight-year-old Erica Wu of Canton earned gold in Level 4 at the Level 4 and 5 USA Compulsory Junior Olympics Championship last month.
Wu, representing the Westwood-based New England Sports Academy, emerged out of the top 50 gymnasts from across the country as the champion.
She was first in floor (9.1), first in hoop (8.6), and second on rope (7.8).
Wu, along with Regina Yu (Wayland), Anastasia Sukharevsky (Newton), Keara Shores (Stoughton), Emily Chen (Reading), and Bea Edmonds (Dedham), helped Region 4 claim the best overall score of 423.05.
The team is under the direction of Varduhi Nahapetyan, a three-time national champion rhythmic gymnast from Armenia. She started the rhythmic program at NESA five years ago.
Harrison to row in Austria event
He is not headed to Beijing for the Olympics, but Ben Harrison isn't complaining.
The Dedham native will represent the United States in the men's pair with coxswain at the coming World Rowing Championships in Austria.
Harrison and Ted Farwell, a Middlesex School graduate, teamed up with coxswain Vincent Puma to win the coxed pair trials at the world championship trials last week at Lake Mercer in New Jersey. With their time of seven minutes, 12.77 seconds, they outpaced the second-place shell by more than 4 seconds, earning an automatic berth to the worlds July 22-27 in Linz, Austria.
Harrison, who began rowing competitively while prepping at the Noble and Greenough School, has spent most of his time since graduating from Brown a year ago training with the US men's rowing team in Princeton, N.J. He had been hopeful about earning a trip to the Olympics, but was realistic about his chances just a year out of school.
"I consider the world championships a great opportunity to represent the country," he said. "It's not the Olympics, but it is the next best thing for me. It's a great opportunity for me to get better and get more experience and see what I can do."
The world championship trials will truly represent the best of the best in the coxed pairs, which is not an Olympic event. Harrison and Farwell had not worked together extensively, but were still optimistic about their chances.
"We knew that we had some speed, but we were worried that we wouldn't have enough time to put everything together," Harrison said.
"We sort of knew that if we went out and had our best race, that we wouldn't be beat," Harrison said.
Walpole graduate heading to Beijing
Former Walpole High field hockey star Dina Rizzo can book her flight to China. Last week, she was one of 16 women selected to the US women's field hockey team that will compete in the Olympic Games.
The 1998 Walpole graduate has been part of the US national team system since she joined the under-18 team in 1997. In that time, she played four years at Maryland and helped the Terrapins win four Atlantic Coast Conference titles and an NCAA championship in 1999. Now she will be part of the first US women's appearance in the Olympics since 1996.
The field hockey team will compete in a four-team tournament in Bremen, Germany, from Friday to Sunday. It will include Korea, India, and Germany. Then they will travel to play the Netherlands, the top-ranked team in the world, July 9-12. 