Due to the winter storm watch issued by the National Weather Service for our area on Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February 10th the Department of Athletics has POSTPONED the Jake McCandless '51 PVC Speaker Series. The event featuring Hall of Fame triathlete Karen Smyers '83 scheduled for Wednesday, February 10, 2010 will be rescheduled for Tuesday, April 27, 2010. Please look for subsequent emails from the Princeton Varsity Club as the rescheduled event draws closer.
Smyers has been a professional triathlete for over 25 years. She has won seven National and four World Championship titles, including a dramatic come-from-behind victory in the Hawaiian Ironman World Championships in 1995. Her victory at the short-course Triathlon World Championship just 5 weeks later earned her the distinction of being the only woman ever to win triathlon’s two most prestigious races in the same year.
Subsequently, she endured the challenge of a severed hamstring muscle by broken glass, a time-out for the birth of her daughter, a knockdown by an eighteen-wheeler while cycling, and a battle with thyroid cancer, but came back to win her seventh Elite National Championship title in August of 2001.
Karen gave birth to her second child in January 2004 and returned again to the professional race circuit, intent on widening the horizon of what is possible while aging into one’s forties. Her win at the Timberman 70.3 in 2004 and 2006 and her Top 10 finish at the Hawaiian Ironman in 2005 are indications that even at age 45, she can still race with the best.
Come join the Princeton Varsity Club on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 in Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall for this wonderful event.
The event if free and open to the public!