Celebrating our Australian Women's Oarsome Foursome! 

Victoria is very proud to have three Victorian's in the successful Women's Four that raced at the Tokyo 2020 Rowing Regatta. The three girls are Rosie Popa (Banks Rowing Club), Lucy Stephan (Melbourne University Boat Club) and Jess Morrison (Mercantile Rowing Club). The fourth member of the crew was Annabelle McIntyre from Fremantle Rowing Club. 

All three of our Victorian's have taken the time to answer some questions about their Tokyo 2020 experience.

Question 1 - What was your favourite highlight or moment from attending the 2020 Tokyo Olympics?

Rosie - The Olympics is one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had. Winning a Gold Medal is a massive highlight, but for me being able to sit on the balcony of our room with the members of my four the day before our final: we did facemasks, listened to music and were having a laugh over the silliest things. It was such a pure and simple hour where we just enjoyed each other's company as mates, switching off and just enjoying the moment.

Lucy - Wining Gold and being able to enjoy the moment with the M4-, M4x and W4x

Jess - Winning a gold medal with my best mates. 

Question 2 - What do you wish you knew before attending the Tokyo 2020 Olympics? 

Rosie - I feel as though we were as prepared going into the Games as we could have been - there really wasn't anything that we hadn't thought about before getting there. Although we weren't able to race internationally in the 2021 season, we had mentally rehearsed everything so nothing was really a surprise.

Lucy - Even though I knew this before the games it confirmed just how hard it is. Anything can happen and just because you have the worlds best time or a 3 times world champion over the cycle the Olympics just don’t care.

Jess- How much walking we would be doing at the village! I think i was clocking around 8 - 10 km each day... just walking to and from the Australian building to the dining hall, bus transport and to the roiwng course. I might have increased my walking routine prior to arriving in Tokyo to get a little more used to it. 

Question 3 - What was your motivation to keep you training over the past 18 months? 

Rosie - Just to be proud of my and my teammates' efforts for persisting with training hard and challenging each other everyday even when it was uncertain the Olympic Games would ahead. I was constantly in awe of the whole squad that we all got on with and kept setting personal PB's and smashing goals even in such a stressful and uncertain time.

Lucy - My motivation was to achieve the dream of winning a gold. That was the over all dream but it was the little goals that helped. Like taking the time of lockdown to improve my erg and get even fitter and stronger.

Jess - I felt that Australia was in an advantageous position throughout the pandemic in terms of not being affected too badly compared to most of the world and hence I thought we would be well positioned to perfrom in Tokyo. Thankfully none of fell ill to the virus and our training was largely uninterrupted with very limited restrictions. I took the postponement as an opportunity to make gains with an additional year of training... to get mentally stronger, physically fitter and make different boat classes go faster. We weere able to train safely and keep improving I therefore wanted to exploit the opportunity and present better at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics than I would have presented had the games been in 2020. 

Question 4 - What words of encouragement would you like to say to the next generation of rowers coming through about pursing their dreams of making the Olympics? 

Rosie - Set personal goals, back yourself, ask for help, lean on your support networks, enjoy the process and be proud of yourself for having a crack. Try to get a little bit better every single day, know that even if you lose a race or pop on an erg, there's always a lesson to be learned to make you better.

Lucy - If you have passion and desire the possibilities are endless. There will be hard times along the way but try not to regret them because they can always have lesions behind them, and on that make sure you self reflect. There will always be things out of your control but there are always things you can do better.

Jess - Patience is key and be able to flip any form of adversity into an opportunity. The postponement was an opportunity for me to use the extra year to my advantage get that little bit better and go through another selection process to present a better version of me in 2021 than the 2020 version of me which in turn gave me the opportunity to be selected in the four and put in a position to win a gold medal. 

Keep a look out for next week's installment of Celebrating our Victorian Olympians 

Photo credits to Jess Morrison and Rowing Australia