Watching the American athletes parade into the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, I thought, “This is okay, but it was much better with a ’92 carrying the American flag.” Remember when Cameron Myler’s teammates elected her to do so at the 1994 games in Lillehammer, Norway?


Annie Kakela, Nina Kemppel, Carl Swenson and Cameron all competed in the Olympics—and none of them stopped with just one visit to the games. The class of 1992 leads most Dartmouth classes in Olympic attendance. Our classmates competed 12 times (and coached), giving us the silver in this competition I just invented (edged out by the class of 2006 and its amazing roster of women’s hockey players).


Annie competed in rowing in Atlanta in 1996 (placing fourth in coxed eights). “I worked at U.S. Rowing for five years, assisting with the national team and overseeing under-23 athlete identification and development. I coached at the 2012 Olympic Games,” she wrote. “Last fall my husband and I left U.S. Rowing to move back to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to raise our kids.


“Two stories from my athletic career illustrate the strong friendships and the support network that are developed at Dartmouth and last a lifetime. I made the U.S. rowing team for the 1993 world championships, held in a small town in the Czech Republic. We raced all week and finished the finals with a silver medal. It was totally unexpected from our young crew. As we were rowing back to the dock I heard someone yell, ‘Hey, Annie!’ It was one of my classmates, and rowing teammates, Todd Millay. He was doing a Rhodes Scholarship in England, but I had no idea he was traveling around Europe. He had heard the world championships were going on and decided to stop by to see if I had made the team. A second memory is of the 1996 Olympics. A bunch of my Dartmouth teammates all road-tripped down to watch the racing in Atlanta.”


Nina lives in her native Alaska, where she runs the Alaska Humanities Forum. During her career as a cross-country skier she won 18 U.S. championships. She also competed in four Olympics: 1992 in Albertville, France; 1994 in Lillehammer (placing 10th in the 4-by-5K relay); 1998 in Nagano, Japan; and 2002 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She joined the U.S. Olympic Committee board of directors and began serving as an athletes’ advisory council director in 2010.


Carl is back in New Hampshire (his home state), working as a criminal-defense attorney for the New Hampshire public defender program. He competed in the Olympics in cross-country skiing three times: 1994, 2002 (placing fifth in the 4-by-10K relay) and 2006 in Torino, Italy.


Cameron competed four times: 1988 in Calgary, Canada; 1992 (placing fifth); 1994; and 1998. While a member of the U.S. national luge team from 1985 to 1998 Cameron was U.S. national champion seven times and won 11 World Cup medals (more than any other American woman in the sport’s history).


After retiring from competition she “litigated intellectual property cases and represented Olympic athletes and sports organizations in regulatory, eligibility, ethics and anti-doping matters,” she wrote. “I was just hired as a full-time clinical assistant professor of sports management in New York University’s Robert Preston Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management, where I teach sports law and international sports governance (and love it).


“In my free time I serve as an athlete ambassador for Kids Play International’s programs in Africa, a member of the nonprofit Art of the Olympians and an ambassador for Athlete Ally, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on fighting homophobia in sports.”


—Kelly Shriver Kolln, 3900 Cottage Grove Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52403; (319) 533-4326; news@dartmouth92.org