Olympic rower credits Aviron Knowlton for paving way to 2021 Tokyo Olympics
Former member of Aviron Knowlton and resident of Brome Lake, Gabrielle Smith, is heading to the summer 2021 Tokyo Olympics after being selected to represent the national rowing team. Smith didn’t start rowing full-time until 2012 but athleticism was always in her blood. After finding her coach Gavin Mckay, who established Avrion Knowlton, she has continuously rowed her way up the ladder. Now she is in the process of preparing to fulfill a life-long dream.
“I started rowing in 2012. I got into it through lifeguarding on Toronto Island, and we had these giant wood rowboats that we’d throw our equipment in and row out to our beaches. I really liked it and it was nice on Lake Ontario,” said Smith.
During the 2012 Olympics, Rowing Canada organized a program called the Row to Podium Program geared towards strong and tall athletes, but they didn’t necessarily need to have experience in rowing. That was when Smith found her opportunity. “You just had to know someone who was tall and strong, they didn’t necessarily need to know how to row. If you knew someone who was strong and tall, they could go through a series of physical tests to see if they had what it takes.”
Smith check off all the boxes and started training with her coach Gavin Mckay in Montreal, where she was attending school at the time. “My coach bought a house in Knowlton, so we were training there on the weekends. He shifted the whole training centre out there when I graduated school.”
She uprooted to Knowlton where she started to establish a life for herself and made connections in the community. “I used to wait tables at Buzz Café and they were super kind and flexible in scheduling for me. I worked at Canadian Pond and they were also accommodating for me and let me work sort of odd hours to make sure I could train. I lifeguarded for the town and started my own swimminglesson school when I was there. I got to know all the mothers and their kids.”
Balancing work and training is a challenge that athletes face.
“I worked a number of jobs in the community. It can be tricky for sure being an athlete, trying to work, because you can only balance so much. You need to work to support yourself but not too much that it takes away from what you need to do in your training. I was able to carve a pathway with people in the community.”
After training in Knowlton for a while, a selection regatta was held in 2018. “I had been training in Knowlton and then we had a regatta in the spring that was a selection regatta. If you performed well, you would be selected to the national team. I did well, so I was invited to row on the national team and I have progressively gone from there each year since. In 2019, we
qualified officially for the Olympics, but the way it works in rowing is that you qualify the boat, but you don’t qualify the person. Even though we qualified the boat, doesn’t mean I qualified.”
Left with uncertainty, Smith continue to prove herself over the course of the year until she was officially selected for the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. “Your performance is monitored throughout the year and if you keep ticking off the boxes and you prove yourself to be fast enough, then you get selected.”
A typical day for Smith is two to three training sessions. “It’s between 25 and 30 hours a week normally; most of which is rowing specifically and some of which is lifting wights and biking. For the most part, we work on the physical side of things, but there are very technical things in rowing so it’s a balance of very hard work and technique.”
Smith said that you can be putting a lot of effort into your stroke, but if you don’t work with your boat, it’s not going to get you anywhere. “The hardest thing when you’re racing is you’re working as hard as you can, but the boats are super light and tippy. If you want to actually go fast you have to work with your boat, rather than just going crazy. It’s a lot of ‘how efficiently can I row so all the power I put into each stroke actually moves the boat’?”
Going to the Olympics has been a dream for Smith, but it isn’t always her focus. “It’s always been a lifelong dream of mine to go to Olympics for sure but if you focus on just that you might miss out on the actual steps you need to take to get there. Going day by day, one race, one training session at time, if you do what you’re supposed to do, you will get there in the end. I focus on what I’m doing each day rather than the scary Olympics.”
She has been on the west coast in Victoria gearing up for the Olympics, starting on July 23, but she credits her time at Aviron Rowing with helping her move towards success. “They definitely gave me a lot of support over the years, and I worked with my coach Gavin for six years while I was there, so I owe a lot of my success to them and our relationship.”
While the Olympics will look different due to the pandemic, Smith is ready to give it her all. “I’m super excited. Of course, it’s going to look a bit different to most Olympics, but at the end of the day it’s a race, and I’m ready to get out there and race as hard as I can.”