Tokyo 2020 - The Final
It felt very weird thinking we were boating for the biggest race of our lives. It felt both significant and familiar.
To some extent, it felt like any other day as I went through the motions and the processes I usually on race day. The same pre-paddle as usual, eating, stretching, listening to music, weighing in, preparing to boat and then, finally getting on the water and pushing off for the last time.
This was how it was supposed to be of course, we had practiced it so many times and been through a variety of scenarios in our psychology sessions - it was supposed to feel chilled and normal. We could tell that the coaches were nervous, Nick our coach spent most of the time after the pre-paddle triple checking everything on the boat and cleaning it thoroughly and never left it’s side.
Before the race, I always carve out 10 minutes to go through the race mentally, stroke by stroke to the almost exact time it will take to complete 2km. I cox the crew in my head and take them through the race, improvising individual calls and giving them race updates, just like I would in the real thing- funnily enough, we always win in these scenarios. Once I have simulated the race, I feel ready to go.
Our warm up went well, the four was the last race of the day, and so it was bizarre to row up to the start line and see our teammates racing their Paralympic finals as we headed up. We cheered them on briefly but then had to carry on and focus on our own goal.
Due to a cross headwind, the lanes had been reseeded and we found ourselves in Lane 1, meaning we had just one crew directly alongside us, the USA. They have been our biggest rivals for a number of years and we knew they had been training well, with a target on our backs. All of a sudden, the starting gun was going off and the race was underway.
We started well and within a few strokes, it felt like the sound of everything else disappeared and we were just on our own, in our own race. This wasn’t the case of course, America was sticking with us through the first 250m but I felt comfortable and in control. As we got deeper into the second minute of the race, we started to move away from the Americans and the rest of the pack - it was ours for the taking. Over the coming minutes, we executed what we had been training to do with precision and intent, and the second half of the race seems a blur of noise and adrenaline.
When we crossed the line, I was overwhelmed with emotion - relief that we had done it was probably the dominant one, followed by joy, pride and shock that it was all over. We had won the Paralympic Games.
