First impressions from rowing's Paralympians

Day one of racing on the Sea Forest Waterway is done and dusted for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic regatta. Here’s what the athletes have to say as they progress forward to the next rounds.

The preparation before the Paralympic Games

The first step in winning a Paralympic medal is to find the way into the A-final – and it starts way before the first heat of the regatta. The preparation before the Paralympic games was as important as its ever been.

“It’s been pretty normal. There’s been all the lockdown stuff back home, but the biggest part is you can’t let it mentally get to you. We’re all here and we know we’ve got a job to do. That’s the biggest part, focusing on the bigger picture, and not letting the small stuff like lockdown and everything that’s going on around the world affect that focus.” – Erik Horrie, PR1 Men’s Single Sculls, Australia.

“The last weeks we were really in a good flow and had some good opportunity to build up towards here, so that’s very good. We only had a few days left here for training. The most important is to make sure we are fully rested and ready to race.” – Corne De Koning, PR2 Mixed Double Sculls, Netherlands.

“It’s been a different experience, different challenges. The whole team has done a fantastic job of not only preparation for the rowing out here, but living with the additional challenges that come with being here, and how do you make that just slot in and feel normal and feel like a routine.” – Laurence Whiteley, PR2 Mixed Double Sculls, Great Britain.

The racing conditions

This event, perhaps in particular, brings with it many different factors. Athletes have to be prepared for the hot weather and humidity at the Sea Forest Waterway.

“It’s really humid and I was struggling with the grip of the oar, so I actually slipped the oar on stroke number three in my testing start which meant that the whole oar was just thrown away. I was a little bit defensive when I was doing the start here to make sure I was going to make it to the finish line. Coming from the Nordics this is quite unusual, so I’m aware of trying to read the signals on my body as well as I can.” – Birgit Skarstein, PR1 Women’s Single Sculls, Norway.

Athletes are not only dealing with the pressure of racing, as an outdoor sport, they have the added challenge of dealing with whatever conditions come their way.

“Conditions were tough, it’s a cross-head (wind). It’s not a rower’s favourite condition, but we go with that and we row for every condition. We weren’t really focused on time today, we went out there to race and get that first slot. Our strategy was just to go out there and race our own thing and race on rhythm and come out with that top spot.” – Lauren Rowles, PR2 Mixed Double Sculls, Great Britain.

“We train around the race times so our body gets used to the heat that we’ll have in the race times, and we have to work on a real clean release to make sure we don’t catch crabs (get blades stuck in the water). It happened a lot during the Paralympics.”  – Annika Van Der Meer, PR2 Mixed Double Sculls, Netherlands.

Being at the Olympics

No matter the conditions, being present at the Paralympic Games is always special – and sometimes surprising.

“For me personally and as a team it is an opportunity for the crew to gain experience before the Paris (2024) Games, although it’s far from certain that we’ll make Paris. Qualifying obviously is not a coincidence, it’s the result of a year’s constant work. This is an opportunity to gain a lot of experience as a team and that motivates each of us to prepare for fireworks in Paris.” – Enrique Floriano Millan, PR3 Mixed coxed Four, Spain.

This was always going to be a very different Games. It’s covered in caveats, at points we didn’t think it was ever going to go ahead. The Japanese have done an incredible job of putting it all together. But now, we’re racing and the event is ours to win. If we win here on Sunday it’ll be 11 years being unbeaten in this four. We’ve got a target on our backs, we can’t ignore that, but it’s ours to win.” – James Fox, PR3 Mixed Coxed Four, Great Britain.

“I think I can say that we hope we can show what we’re capable of – we can show our best rowing.” – Annika Van Der Meer, PR2 Mixed Double Sculls, Netherlands.