Tamara Jenkins is often mistaken for the supermodel Linda Evangelista. It is a comparison that ends at the pull-up bar, where Tamara can rip off forty in a row. She needs the strength. Her event, Olympic kayaking, is not like gliding over waterfalls or steering through rapids. An Olympic kayak is a seventeen-foot speed machine that sprints on flat water. A singles race goes 500 meters -- a little over a quarter mile -- and is over in about 220 strokes and less than two minutes. It's all about power and technique. Each time Jenkins sets the paddle in the water, she pulls back the equivalent of seventy pounds. The only drawback to the event is the balance beam of a saddle she is stationed on for hours of practice each day. "You're on your seat a lot," says Jenkins, twenty-one, who began kayaking six years ago and works nights at Home Depot to finance her training. "You're propelling your body with your legs. It's inevitable for your butt to obtain some scar tissue. It's really not that bad. I'll take a gold medal any day."

Tamara Jenkins competed in her first Olympic Games in Sydney after winning the women's K-1W and K-2W 500m final at the 2000 U.S. Olympic Canoe/Kayak Flatwater Team Trials. She placed first overall in the 2000 Silver Blade Regatta and first in the K-2W 200m, 500m and 1,000m ICF World Cup races. In 1999, she compiled first-place finishes in the K-2W and K-4W 500m National Team Trials. At the 1999 International Regattas in Slovakia and Austria, Jenkins placed first in the K-2W 1000m and K-2W 500m. Also in 1999, she won the K-2W and K-4W 500m at the Pan American Games Team Trials and the K-2W 200m, 500m and 1,000m at the national championships. In 1998, Jenkins placed first in the K-2W and K-4W 500m races at the National Team Trials. At the 1998 Miyoshi Cup, her foursome won first place in both the 200m and the 500m. In 1997, she placed first in the K-4W 1,000m at the International Regatta in Amsterdam. Her first major victory came in 1996 with a first-place finish in the K-1W Junior World Trials. (10/00)

Source: Esquire