Waiting for a dream

Ursula James (28) has a dream - standing on a podium, an Olympic medal around her neck. It won't happen this year. Ursula lives in Lake Stevens, USA, but is a South African citizen. She moved to the US four years ago and has since married an American. She began rowing and is already good enough that she might have made either the American or the South African Olympic teams. She ended up on neither - she cannot represent the USA because she is not a citizen. There is a three-year waiting period to start the application process for citizenship, which began after her 2006 marriage to David James. She also cannot row for South Africa. She visited South Africa last year and went with her father to meet with the coach of the national rowing team. Because of the country's quotas for most of its athletic teams, she was told "that they already have their quota of white athletes on the rowing team". Now Ursula hopes to make the 2012 Olympics in London. She went to the US as an au pair for a family on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill. When the children went off to school, she would occasionally go to Green Lake, where she got interested in rowing. She was a track athlete and tri-athlete in South Africa. After her year of being an au pair, she was missing home, so the rowing gave her a purpose. She eventually moved to Everett and then to Lake Stevens, where she joined the Lake Stevens Rowing Club. Early last year, she began training with Carlos Dinares, a prominent rowing coach. Last month, Ursula rowed at the US Rowing National Championships at Lake Mercer in West Windsor, N.J., where she won the single sculls, a 2,000-meter race, in 7 minutes, 40.89 seconds. Ursula works part-time at a fitness club and does freelance work in graphic design.