"Really just a stepping stone for us," was how lightweight men's double stroke seat Sam Melvin described last weekend's Olympic and Paralympic Trials.
A Trials win, after all, is just a waypoint on a much longer journey.
Of the 10 winners at the Olympic trials, three will go directly to Paris, while the others will race in Lucerne in May for the last few Olympic spots still to be granted, and Melvin's comment about the Trials as a stepping-stone applies to all of the weekend's winners.
This is how that next step breaks down across the ten events contested at the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Trials:
Winning in a qualified event was a step to enjoy of course, and Kohler called her win a dream come true in talking with fellow Olympian Lindsay Shoop, as she made her third Olympic Team (if the link below appears to be broken, it will still work if you click).
With Trials in the books, all the athletes for Paris have now been picked, either by winning here--pending success at the Final Qualifier--or by being named to the team in the 5 qualified Olympic boats and the 2 qualified Paralympic boats, or to the Men's Eight, which will race the Final Qualifier with the crews listed above.
row2k caught up with several of the Trials winners to talk about what comes next, be it the Olympics or the Final Qualifier, and you can read more below, but here are links to the post-race interviews from Peacock's Trials broadcast with the winners in each event.
Next Step Paris for Five New 2024 Olympians
The biggest prize at the Trials went to the five athletes whose next step is already Paris. Fittingly enough for Kara Kohler in the W1x and Billy Bender in the M2-, the spots they won were the ones they had helped the US earn last year in Belgrade. Kohler took fourth in the W1x a year ago, and Bender raced to fifth in the M2- in his senior team debut with then-partner Evan Olson. Olson himself was recently named to the US Men's Eight that will look to qualify on Lucerne.
Their status as 2024 Olympians is pending US Olympic/Paralympic Committee approval, of course, but that process of becoming official Olympians is already well underway, at least on social media:
This will be Kohler's third Games, after winning bronze in the 2012 quad and then racing the single in 202One, and the second Games for W2- stroke Jess Thoennes. Both Bender and Oliver Bub in the M2- are first time Olympians, as is Thoennes' pair partner Azja Czajkowski.
Making the team again was a thrill for Thoennes, who won a silver with the Women's eight in Belgrade and will head to Paris in a pair that put a good eight seconds into tight field jockeying for second place behind them.
"Azja and I came together post selection camp in a pair matrix with several other women who had been cut from camp," Thoennes told row2k. "I was so excited for the opportunity to row with Azja and the week leading up to Trials we just emphasized taking good strokes together.
"Our next steps before the Olympics will be taking a little rest after a stressful few months and then getting back to the work. We have several months to make strides and after seeing how we grew together in a week, the only thing I have is excitement for the future."
Next Step Lucerne - Ben Davison, M2x
For Tokyo Olympian Ben Davison in the Men's Double, the Final Qualifier will not be new: he tried for a spot in the quad at the Rio Games through the Qualifier.
His partner Sorin Koszyk has faced the pressure-cooker of the last chance regatta before as well. Koszyk raced there in 2021, also in the quad, but he did not make it to the Games that time around.
Both are planning to be successful this time, relying in part on their experience, but also on the speed their combination has already shown. The duo won silver at World Cup 2 last summer and finished atop both the C/D semi and the C Final in Belgrade after a rough go in the quarterfinal sidelined their hopes of qualifying in the top 11 last year.
That experience helps, Davison said.
"We are going into this race having been there before and having experienced this lead-up before.
"[The Qualifier] is just racing internationally, but it adds that other level or layer of stress, which is not to be ignored. It's definitely been wearing on our minds a lot these days and it has for the last seven months since we decided to pursue this. We knew that this was coming but it does help that we've been there and we've sat at the start line there.
"It can't be one of those 'let's see how it goes' types of things," Davison said about racing the Qualifier. "There's a lot going on and you've got to be able to handle that. That's going to be a big focus for us in the next month, being able to have consistency under all circumstances because when you're sitting there at the start line for that race, and we've both been there, it doesn't get much tougher than that, mentally."
While Davison and Koszyk had to first earn their spot at the Qualifier by winning the Trials, getting back in the double together has been the plan all along.
"We had a conversation last year after the quarterfinal. We were both really confident in the double, and what happened in the quarterfinal, which was our own doing, was pretty devastating for us. We really felt like everything that we'd done up to then and everything we did after was good in the semi final and the C Final.
"That really hurt us last year but we still thought the speed was there. We still believed in the combination. So we had to sit down and ask, are we still on for this? And we both agreed, so that's been the commitment this year.
"This time last year, we were just hopping in the boat for the first time together and we were able to produce some fast times. It was not the ultimate result that we wanted in the end, but we had some glimpses of speed that we felt were pretty exceptional and that we were pretty happy with. So that that was really the thought going into this year, if that's where we were at last year and we can be in the boat from an earlier stage and gain more experience rowing together, and then on top of that be in a better position physically, then we should we should be in a good spot."
Next Step Lucerne - Jake Plihal, M1x
Jake Plihal will head to Lucerne in the men's single, fresh off a year in which he focused on racing the 1x at the Pan Am Games. He won silver there, just behind the Brazilian sculler Lucas Verthein, who finished 14th at Worlds and recently earned a Paris place by winning the Americas Qualifier.
"I think the Pan Am Games experience was really beneficial for me," said Plihal. "Having the qualifier race in April and then the actual games in October gave me a lot of international race opportunities in the single. Those were races that I wouldn’t have gotten stateside, since our domestic race schedule is usually quite limited. The guys on the Pan Am circuit such as Lucas Verthein [BRA], Bruno Cetraro [URU], and Juan Jose Flores Rodriguez [MEX] have a lot of race experience at various levels: Olympics, Pan Ams, and Worlds. It was good to get exposure to racing guys outside of the domestic circuit."
"The progression at Pan Ams was also just a degree or so more forgiving than my experience racing the World Cup 2 last year. In Varese, I had a bad quarterfinal and ended up in the C final. If you’re off your mark by just a little bit at the World Cup or World Champs, there’s just that many more people racing at a high caliber who are ready to take a progressing spot away from you. So I think having the Pan Am experience in the single racing some heavy hitters, but not all of the heavy hitters was really great for my development in the single."
Next Step Lucerne – Cooper Tuckerman and Sam Melvin, LM2x
As noted above, Melvin addressed the two-step process ahead of he and Tuckerman to get to Paris, and the urgency it requires.
"We're going to make every session count from here on out," he added in his post race interview with USRowing. "We've got six weeks."
Melvin and Tuckerman, a new combination that got together after last fall's Speed Order, beat last year's US Light Double to win, and hope to improve the USA's standing in the event to earn that Paris spot in Lucerne.
Andrew Mangan, looking to make his first Paralympic team after two years of racing at Worlds for the US, faces the toughest ask in Lucerne. The way the quota places break down, only one spot is up for grabs at the Qualifier in his event, but he is optimistic.
"I'm very excited to have the Paralympic Trials under the belt and looking forward to Lucerne," said Mangan.
"My coach and I put together a solid race plan and used today as an opportunity to test out a different race strategy. The past 6 months have been some of the hardest training of my career and I am feeling strong and happy with some of the technical changes that are coming to fruition.
"I am super thankful and grateful for this opportunity and have really enjoyed the training and the work which makes it easier to keep putting in the hours. I still have a lot of work cut out for me in order to qualify for Paris and there will be many fast rowers in Lucerne, but I am looking forward to 6 weeks of solid training before the race. I will be focusing on aspects of my start and translating the technical work to higher rates."
Racing at the Final Olympic and Paralympic Qualification Regatta runs from May 19th to the 21st.
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