Aquil Abdullah rowed at The George Washington University where he graduated in 1996 with a degree in Physics. He was on the US national team from 1999 through 2004. He competed at the 2001 and 2002 World Championships and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Currently Aquil is the Senior Infrastructure Engineer as well as a featured athlete at Hydrow, Inc., Aquil was formerly a senior data analyst/software developer for CargoMetrics (Boston), a software developer for Microsoft and an application engineer for Interactive Supercomputing.
He earned a silver medal in the single at the 1999 Pan Am Games and was the first African American male rower to qualify for the Summer Olympics (2004) where he made the final in the men’s double, the only US men’s double to have done so since 1984. Aquil also won the Diamond Challenge Sculls (1x) at the Henley Royal Regatta in 2000.
Aquil coached the Mandela Crew which was the first African American and Latino crew to compete at the Head of the Charles from 1998-1999. Currently, he sits on a subcommittee of the Head of the Charles Regatta working to increase diversity at the event. Aquil also had a feature role in the 2004 documentary Unconstitutional which addressed restrictions on civil liberties which coincided with the passing of the Patriot Act. Aquil has been on numerous boards and advisory boards including Community Rowing Inc. (2009 – 2010), Chicago Training Center Athlete Advisory Council (2006 – 2012), RowVigor, Advisory Board (2017 – 2018), Blue Water Metrics, Technical Advisor (2016-present), and the Boston Foundation Civic Compact (2010).
Aquil and his wife Megan live in Ipswich, MA with their two children. Aquil can be seen rowing on the Charles River and on the Hydrow rowing platform. Aquil co-authored a book, Perfect Balance, after losing the Men’s Single Scull tie-breaker by 0.3 seconds at the 2000 Olympic trials. Aquil is also an accomplished saxophonist and has performed professionally.