February 2025: Nikki Ayers

Since winning PR3 mixed double sculls gold at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, Nikki Ayers has been taking some time for herself – while also picking up a plethora of awards alongside her rowing partner Jed Altschwager. She is the Rower of the Month.

How did you get into rowing?

I originally played rugby union here in Australia and was trying to play for the Australian women’s team, which is the Wallaroos. Unfortunately I had my injury in 2016, where I got my disability.

After that I was told to go to an information session for Tokyo, a ‘Train for Tokyo’ day that Paralympics Australia was running. Rowing was one of the four sports that they suggested to go play. Rowing reached out, one of my best mates was coaching rowing at a local club in Canberra at that point in time, and I’d previously been rowing surf boats here in Australia so I kind of thought ‘how different could rowing be?’ And that’s how I got into it. And then loved it.

What appealed about rowing?

I liked the challenge of it. Being such an athletic person, sports was such a big part of my life and that was all taken away with my injury, it gave me something to work towards and it gave me a goal.

I liked that it was physically challenging but it was also mentally challenging as well. It was something that I had never done before, never considered. Every day I was learning something but every day I was getting better at it as well.

What did you bring from rugby to rowing?

My determination to never give up. In rugby, you’re playing a game and you’d be losing and there’s 14 other people on the field with you, but you would always pick each other up and remind each other it’s OK, at the end of the day it’s just a game, but you would come together and you could turn around a game that you weren’t winning with that.

But it’s also just that never give up mentality and it’s a bit like that with rowing. Especially in a 2k, my starts were never great, so I was always a bit behind and instead of getting down in the dumps I was like no, stick to your process, it’s going to be all right. Then you just keep going with it.

Also the team environment. That was a big thing which I like to think personally that I brought over from rugby which is being a team player and that really came into effect with the combination with Jed (Altschwager) in the double. We had a friendship and a partnership on and off the water, and that allowed us to have really good open conversations that contributed to our success as well. And we had a great relationship with our coaches and support staff because we were a team.

What were the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games like?

We were so fortunate to still be able to go to the Games, and that was my first Games. So for it to be a Games that will probably never happen again, that was a really unique experience and the Games were hosted really well, all things considered.

It was really weird racing without friends and family or anyone in the crowd but for me Tokyo ended up being just five years after I had my injury, so going from wanting to play rugby for Australia to being an Australian Paralympian was a pretty amazing experience.

We came fourth and it was hard to come fourth, but with everything we were dealt with in the pandemic, when we crossed that finish line in that A-final I was so happy and so proud, knowing everyone who was a part of my journey – especially my family who were an absolute rock. Without them I wouldn’t have gotten to Tokyo.

What did you do after Tokyo?

My background is a nurse, I was an ICU nurse, and I was still working in that the whole time in the lead-up to Tokyo, especially during the pandemic. That was a bit crazy, but I was really fortunate to be able to give back to the community and use my skills in that way during Covid.

After Tokyo I took some time out to go and become a midwife. I took 12 months off and wasn’t really sure if I was going to get back into rowing, and then the (PR3) double got announced, and there was a conversation with Jed. I did my midwifery and he did stuff in his life, and at the end of that course, we were like let’s give this a crack. The stars all just aligned for it.

What made the combination with Jed Altschwager click?

The first rowing camp we ever did, we were both at the same one in 2017 at the Australian Institute of Sport. Straight away we just got along really well.

We were older than everyone else there. We just clicked and developed a friendship from that. I knew Jed as a person, as a friend, but I also knew him as an athlete and he was someone who gives 110 per cent in whatever he puts his mind to, he’s going to do everything he can to achieve that. But along the way he’s going to have fun and for me that was something that I really wanted, to have fun and enjoy the process and enjoy the journey and I just really believed that that was going to happen with Jed.

You came into Paris undefeated in the boat class – what sort of confidence did that give you?

There was definitely a little pressure. We had conversations about it. Leading into Paris the mindset was that we embrace that pressure because we earned it.

We got the world best time, we broke it; then we won world champs and then we won World Cup. Coming into that we were undefeated and we had earned that title and we earned that pressure. We had conversations about acknowledging it but then parking it, just leaving it and not paying attention to it because for us it was about following processes.

That was such a big thing we worked on down in Adelaide at the South Australian Sports Institute. really fine-tuning and refining our processes individually, but also as a crew, so that we could ignore that pressure and know that on the day of the heat, if we rocked up and followed our processes and raced our race plan as we had been training the whole time we would be OK.

And we did that. And then coming to the A-final we did that same thing. It was really about being able to switch off that head noise, switch off all that pressure, and enjoy.

What did it feel like to win the Paralympic gold medal?

It’s a hard one to explain. At first it was just so much excitement. I remember seeing GB out of the corner of my eye and seeing the bubble line and before we even crossed it I was like ‘we’re going to do it, we’re going to win this gold’. And then we crossed, and it was just excitement and joy and happiness and knowing that my immediate family were in the grandstand, and Jed had some members of his family as well.

And then the lactate hit and the pain, the hurt was real. There was also relief, it was relief that the 2k was over and it was the hardest 2k ever, but relief that everything that we had done over the last eight years – because our journeys started from our injuries and the whole Tokyo cycle – that everything we had done had led to this goal that we both wanted. To be able to do that with a friend and teammate and the support crew that we had around us was just such a moment of joy, happiness and pride. It’s absolutely crazy; it’s really hard to put it into words.

What was the race like?

Our races we’re generally last out of the blocks. We kind of knew that was potentially going to happen. But in all honesty I never doubted for a second that we weren’t going to win that race because it was our processes, and I knew we were so ready for that race and it was our race to lose. It was the amazing team that we had around us and being in such a good place mentally and physically, knowing we were at our absolute peak physically, that we’ve got this, and that no matter what happened – if we got silver or bronze or didn’t medal – it was about the journey and we had each other’s back doing that.

Coming off the start we were a bit slow, but that’s how we raced, and we knew that. And then as soon as the start process finished Jed was like ‘Nikki, the stroke coach is off’. His stroke coach timed out. For Jed to be in the stroke and not have any data, he’s a very numbers-driven person – instead of having a panic I just started singing him the numbers, our splits and what-not. It was fun and then we just got on with our race plan.

I never for a second really doubted it because I trusted us and our processes. I knew what he needed without having a whole conversation in the boat.

What was the Paris Paralympic experience like overall?

It was absolutely amazing. Just getting around the Paralympic Village is an experience you get nowhere else. Just walked around and seeing the diversity of athletes and everyone just getting together and having fun and here to perform in a sport that they love, and then get up and represent their countries, it’s such a privilege to be a part of that.

From a disability perspective seeing people with their different prosthetics and their aids and the way they get around and just do everything differently, but that’s the norm. Being part of that Paralympic movement, it’s so surreal but it’s so cool.

What has life been like since Paris?

The highlight since Paris has just been downtime with my family. In the lead-up to Paris it’s the most intense time of training and so much pressure, but I was also working as a nurse-midwife doing shift work at the same time so life was pretty hectic for me.

So for me being back at home with family, and take my nieces and nephews to school and daycare and just hang out with them – my little niece tells everyone that I won a gold medal and she runs upstairs and grabs it and shows everyone that. So just having that moment of how proud my family is that we won gold and that they were there and supported me, that’s definitely the highlight.

What does the future hold?

At the moment I’m just resting and relaxing. Just taking a break from rowing at the moment, taking a little bit of a break from work, just to travel and spend time with family and do things I haven’t been able to do for me for a long time.

I love being an athlete, I love the athlete life, I love the challenge, I love the lifestyle, but for me life’s been absolutely non-stop since 2016 when I did my knee. I’ve still been working the whole time, doing shift work, working through the pandemic, and then the last couple of years with the real potential of winning gold it’s been a very high intensity training block which has been fun, but you put so many things aside. You put so many things for your wellbeing and that mean so much to you and other aspects of your life, you put that to the side, so for me it’s just about spending some time, focusing on me for a little bit, and then I’ll work out what’s next.

Where is your favourite place to row?

Probably in Gavirate, Varese, it’s such a beautiful lake and we’re there every year. Just being out there with the Italian hills and seeing the Swiss Alps, and they’re always beautiful days.

What’s your favourite session?

One I really ended up enjoying was a high threshold session on the erg: two and a half minutes on, two and a half minutes off, by four, and then you do that twice. That’s at like 90, 92 per cent. It was an absolute killer but it made you work hard and if you felt good at the end of it you knew you had a little bit more and you could push harder the next time.

What’s on the erg playlist?

Just mainstream pop, but the Veronicas’ ‘Untouched’ was played a lot in the lead-up to the Games. It just amps me up, that song. And then whatever eclectic weird random stuff Jed had as well. Sometimes it was country, sometimes it wasn’t. But for me anything that’s upbeat with a techno background to it.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone’s ever given you?

It’s definitely control what you can control. A big part of that was with my knee injury and acquiring my disability; I couldn’t control that it happened and I couldn’t control that it took away rugby and so much of my life, but what I could control was what I did with that.

As a result of that I’m now a Paralympic gold medallist. There’s so much externally as athletes and as humans we can’t control and when we can realise that and focus our energy on to what we can control, it just results in much better outcomes and a much better life. It was a very hard lesson to learn in a very traumatic way, but control what you can control.