Michael Harbold

Michael Harbold came from a sports family, as his father was an All-American in lacrosse, and his grandfather was a football All-American at the US Naval Academy. Harbold extended the family sports tradition when he married US Olympic canoeist Alexandra Bernhart in December 1991. Michael Harbold competed at the 1988, 1992, and 1996 Olympics in kayaking, with Alexandra making the team in 1992 and 1996. He was a three-time medalist at the Pan American Games in K-4, winning gold in 1987 at 1,000m, and silvers in 1995 in both 500m and 1,000m.

In 1993 Harbold won the Finlandia Clean Water Challenge, a 1,200-mile paddling marathon which started in Chicago, and ended a month later in New York. Harbold grew up in Hawai’i where he learned paddling with the Hawaiian Canoe and Kayak Team (HCKT). He and Alexandra later settled in the Washington, DC area.