Anna VAN DER KAMP

Anna van der Kamp had a relatively short career as a member of the Canadian national rowing team. Her first major international tournament was the 1994 World Championships, where she placed seventh in the eights alongside Kathleen Heddle, Theresa Luke, Maria Maunder, Emma Robinson, Lesley Thompson-Willie, and the non-Olympians Julie Jespersen-Platt, Kelly Mahon, and Rachel Starr. The same squad, with the non-Olympian Jennifer Browett in place of Heddle, had won a gold medal at the 1994 Commonwealth Regatta. Heddle and Starr were replaced by Jessica Monroe and Tosha Tsang at the 1995 edition, but the crew still only managed a sixth place finish. With Heather McDermid and Alison Korn substituting for Jespersen-Platt and Mahon, however, the Canadians won a silver medal behind the Romanians at the 1996 Summer Olympics, where Van der Kamp was also fifth in the coxless pairs alongside Robinson. Van der Kamp retired after the Games and took up a career as an environmentalist. She founded Clean Air Champions in 2001, a non-profit organization dedicated to involving top athletes in raising awareness of air quality issues and pursuing initiatives to combat the problem.