Daughter of NUWC Division Newport employee will compete in rowing at the 2024 Summer Olympics

Daughter of NUWC Division Newport employee will compete in rowing at the 2024 Summer Olympics

By NUWC Division Newport Public Affairs

NEWPORT, R.I. -

Julie Kallfelz, who heads the Northeast Tech Bridge at NUWC Division Newport, will have a vested interest as she heads to Paris this week to attend the Summer Olympics - her daughter Emily is representing the U.S. in the Women's Rowing Four event.

"We're off-the-charts proud and just so excited for her," Julie said. "It's been a long road. You get to this level, for any athlete, and you appreciate how narrow a slot it is to get to this level of performance and this level of competition. Just a tiny sliver of the population is even physiologically capable."

The Women's Four competition involves a quartet of rowers, each with one oar racing over a 2,000-meter stretch. There are nine countries represented at the Games, with Kaitlin Knifton, Mary Mazzio-Manson and Kelsey Reelick joining 27-year-old Emily in the U.S. boat. Heats begin July 28, and the finals are slated for Aug. 1 (find a detailed schedule below).

"Her attitude hasn't changed much," Julie said of her daughter. "There is definitely the realization that this is the Olympics, and this is a big deal, but at the same time, she and her boat mates have a great vibe where they're just like, 'We're going to go out and do our best.' They're going to treat it like any other race, and not get all spun up about the stress and the pressure and the stage."

Rowing is a family affair. When she arrived at Cornell University in the mid-1980s, Julie overheard a classmate say she was going to try out for the rowing team. A runner and swimmer in high school, Julie had never participated in rowing, but was intrigued and joined the program as a walk-on. That's where Julie met her husband Andrew, who was a member of the men's rowing team.

After the couple moved to Jamestown, Rhode Island, and started to raise a family - daughters Emily and Eliza - they still participated annually in the Head of the Charles boat race for Cornell alumni.

While Emily was introduced to the sport of rowing at an early age, she didn't start competing until late in her high school career, when she learned about recruiting for college athletics. Emily started training with her father on the family's rowing machine in the attic, and that winter competed at CRASH-B's, an annual indoor rowing event at Boston University. Her time was so impressive that college coaches started flooding her inbox that evening.

"She got all of this sudden interest," Julie said.

Emily ultimately chose to attend Princeton University, where she studied engineering, earned first-team All-American recognition and started on her path to qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team. None of that would have been possible, Julie said, without dedication and determination, whether that's in the classroom or weight room, on the rowing machine or on the water.

"Her superpower is that she's willing to put in that grueling hard work all the way up to race day," Julie said. "She's always had this mentality of being able to put her head down and do the work."

While hard work certainly has contributed to Emily's success on the water, there is a significant scientific aspect to it as well. U.S. Rowing, the governing body of the sport in this country, has adopted many of the technological advances to improve performance that have been used in European nations for some time.

This includes sensors on oarlocks to measure power application during each stroke, as well as physiological tests to gain an understanding of an athlete's response to training under peak conditions. As a data analytics engineer for a Boston-based fintech company, Emily uses the numbers to gain an advantage.

"She's very data driven, she looks at the numbers, she knows what her targets are," Julie said. "Every single workout, she knows precisely what her wattage output should be. She knows where she needs to be. Being data driven is her comfort zone."

In May, Emily and her boat mates finished third at the World Cup II event, a precursor to the Summer Games. That result bodes well as the team prepares to compete against the world's best in Paris.

"It was a good sign," Julie said. "Not all the teams they'll see in the Olympics were there, but how Emily's boat performed in the World Cup was very encouraging. Since then, her boat has only gotten faster. They've experimented with their lineup and slowly dialed in to what they hope is their top speed."

Emily will have quite a cheering section as more than 20 members of the Kallfelz crew will be heading abroad to witness the worldwide competition. When Julie isn't at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, the venue for rowing, she'll be attending other events. Among them is beach volleyball, which is being played in the heart of the city with the Eiffel Tower serving as backdrop.

"It will be spectacular to see," Julie said.

But when Emily is on the water and competing, Julie said there will be plenty of nervous moments.

"At the start I don't say much, but as the race progresses, I'll be sweating, have a fast heartbeat and just holding my breath at times," she said. "It's nerve-wracking. It's exciting, but it's nerve-wracking. The best you can do is cheer her on."

The opening heats on June 28 will start at 6:30 a.m., the repechage rounds will be held June 30 at 5:30 a.m., and the finals are scheduled for Aug. 1 at 4:54 a.m. All events can be streamed live on Peacock, the digital platform for the NBC network.

NUWC Newport is the oldest warfare center in the country, tracing its heritage to the Naval Torpedo Station established on Goat Island in Newport Harbor in 1869. Commanded by Capt. Chad Hennings, NUWC Newport maintains major detachments in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Andros Island in the Bahamas, as well as test facilities at Seneca Lake and Fisher's Island, New York, Leesburg, Florida, and Dodge Pond, Connecticut.

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