Road to Olympic Rowing Gold | Part Three with Grace Prendergast

Image credit: World Rowing

The beginning of the Tokyo Olympiad saw the Rio hype fade into memories, but the emotions of missing out on a medal still felt very real. Rio taught me that failure is a better teacher and motivator than success. I knew the memories of Rio would push me to make every day count until the final of the Women’s Pair in Tokyo.

Kerri and I officially started our campaign at the 2017 World Cup II in Poznan, and it couldn’t have gone much better. We won gold, set a new World Best Time and the rest of the season followed suit. We went unbeaten throughout the World Cups, Henley Royal Regatta, and the World Championships, becoming world champions in the women’s pair for the first time.

When we regrouped for the 2018 season, our coach, Gary Hay, shared some words of wisdom that proved to be very true:

“Becoming a world champion once is hard, but backing it up is ten times harder.”

On the surface, our 2018 season didn’t look bad. We were unbeaten at the World Cups again and came away with a silver medal at the World Championships. Internally, things felt different. Kerri described it perfectly, “it was like rowing in mud.”

Training and racing took a mental and physical toll on us, and we were struggling to fix it. On top of our challenges, Rowing New Zealand had its worst performance in over a decade at the 2018 World Championships, with no gold medals…an accolade I didn’t want on my CV.

We returned to Karapiro to rethink our approach for the all-important qualification year. In a meeting with our women’s squad, Gary, also the head women’s coach, laid out the brutal truth: if nothing changes, we would have few female athletes at the Tokyo Olympics.

Kerri and I were confident in our ability to qualify in the pair, but our women’s eight was in danger of not making it. Then came the proposition from Rowing New Zealand: double up in the pair and the eight.

Flashbacks to Rio came to mind, but this time it was different. It was only to help qualify, not for the Olympics, and it might give us the chance to freshen up after a tough season in the pair. We agreed, but under that very clear condition that it was only for the year. We weren’t willing to risk our goal of winning the pair in Tokyo.

The wake-up call of 2018 pushed our women’s squad into action. Many of us had experienced the disappointment of Rio and were determined not to let it happen again. Our pair got back on track, and the eight clicked straight away. Although I didn’t have low expectations for our eight, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly surprised by our debut race. At Henley Royal Regatta, we beat the British in the final relatively comfortably and then went on to win World Cup 3 a week later. Our initial goal was to qualify, but these results made me think, could we actually win both events?

Balancing two boats had its challenges. There was double the racing, we had to split the training time between each crew and ensure both boats felt equally prioritised. The only way this situation could work was with two reserve rowers stepping into the eight when we were in the pair. This was delicate because these two rowers would probably row in the eight 70% of the time without getting the chance to race at World Champs.

It was a testament to the dedication of all ten of us, along with Caleb, our coxswain, that we made it work. After a busy week of racing at the World Championships, we exceeded the season’s initial expectations and came away as world champions in both boats.

It was a dream result, but now we faced a dilemma. Do we stick with the original plan and focus on the pair for Tokyo, or take the gamble and try to recreate this winning year in both boats? The thought of risking a gold medal in the pair by overcommitting was scary. We had spent six years in the pair together working towards this one goal, but on the other hand, the eight felt special. Could we pass up the chance to potentially win the eight, rowing’s blue-ribbon event?

I am quite risk-averse and an incredibly indecisive person, so making a choice that affected not only Kerri and me but also the wider eights group was an incredibly tough decision. If we rowed in the eight as well, we would be responsible for two rowers missing their chance to become Olympians. However, if we didn’t, would it affect the chance of the other six athletes in the crew getting a medal?

After a lot of deliberation, we decided that eights with the potential to win Olympic gold don’t come around every day. Kerri and I knew each other so well in the pair that I believed we could still win, despite the extra workload. The risk of backfiring was real, but the opportunity felt too significant to pass up. I didn’t want to look back in 50 years and think about what could have been and with that, the plan changed. I found myself in the 2020 Olympic year, working towards not one but two Olympic gold medals.

About The Author

Grace Prendergast

Prendergast won a gold medal in the women’s pair at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games alongside a silver in the women’s eight. She is a five-times world champion in the pair and was the highest ranked female rower in the world twice in a row in 2019 and 2021. She also won the Boat Race with Cambridge in 2022 in a record time.

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