We left just before it got serious – you realise it’s on your doorstep
Monika Dukarska on getting out of Italy as Covid-19 took over...
FOR MONIKA DUKARSKA, this is about more than delay. It is not simply a matter of reordering training plans and accepting there is another year to wait until she can become an Olympian. Dukarska is a high-performance rower, and, in a boat with Aileen Crowley, qualified for the women’s pair in Tokyo after their performance at the World Championships in Austria last August.
It is the boat that is qualified for the Olympics, though; the rowers that take their place in it are not guaranteed to be the two who earned qualification in the first place.
Irish Rowing had targeted an Olympic place in the women’s four as well, with a qualifying regatta planned for Switzerland at the end of May.
That was called off two weeks ago, before the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo organisers succumbed to overpowering logic and postponed the Olympics earlier this week.
It means that while Monika Dukarska was central to qualifying a boat – one of four Ireland has earned so far – fresh uncertainty surrounds who will occupy it when the Olympics eventually do start.
‘It is stressful,’ she says, while also recognising stress is relative in these times.
‘I wouldn’t be used to it, so it is stressful and challenging, especially as I was hoping that this was it. The season is going smoothly, I get to Tokyo, it’s all great – and now the virus.
‘And there are another 15 months of trying to defend your seat and trying to hold on to it.
‘It’s definitely tough and stressful but look, hopefully it’s going to make us better and prepare us for the challenge that lies ahead of actually competing at the Games.’
Should Ireland succeed in getting a boat for the women’s four into the Olympics, when qualifying eventually does resume, it would take much of that pressure off, as the four athletes that will contest the women’s pair slots as well as Dukarska and Crowley, would be accommodated there.
But circumstances mean confusion and uncertainty must leak into this issue, as it has into every corner of Irish life.
And Monika Dukarska will get on with it – she has a well-proven ability to do that. Kerry is home, but she was born in Poland.
She moved to Ireland with her family in the winter of 2006, when she was 16 years of age and with only rudimentary English to call upon.
A year and a half later, she completed her Leaving Cert, doing homework with two dictionaries as she translated English into Polish, then her answers back into English.
Today, she is a part-time PhD student and a full-time elite athlete.
She knows what it is to battle for what you want, and so can rationalise easily when asked how she reacted when confirmation eventually dropped of a postponed
Olympics during mid-week.
‘Not too bad, to be honest. I was disappointed, but at the same time we were all expecting it. It was just hanging over us for a long time now.
‘We are all glad that the Games aren’t cancelled, they are postponed. So that’s a positive. The goal is still there; it’s just the route we are taking has changed a small bit, so that’s positive and encouraging.
‘Our dream isn’t taken away from us, it’s just postponed.’
The realisation of just how serious a threat Covid-19 posed to human life, dawned for a group of Irish rowers before it did for most of us in this country.
That is because they spent the end of January and part of February on a training camp in Italy, the country that has been so terribly ravaged by the effects of the virus.
‘We left just before things started getting serious there,’ she remembers. ‘We were at the training camp for three weeks, and we left I think in the middle of February.
‘That’s when we realised this is on our doorstep, it’s not far away from us at all. Then when we went home we had to self-isolate, take all the precautions and things started getting serious.’
Rowing Ireland had isolated its high-performance athletes at the National Rowing Centre in Ovens in Cork in recent weeks.
That allowed them to continue training while adhering to advice regarding social distancing and other necessary measures.
However, on Thursday last, Rowing Ireland closed the centre, announcing that it ‘is in the best interests of the athletes, coaches, and support staff’.
With no Olympics to target, and no domestic or international competition a prospect for weeks to come, there seemed little point in athletes remaining together.
Instead, they have returned to their homes, Dukarska continuing training with no date for her biggest goal in mind; a new date for the Olympics has yet to be fixed.
Some reports suggest that there is a rump of opinion within the IOC that would like to see Japan host the Games next spring.
It would have the advantage of cooler temperatures for athletes, but the idea has already been resisted by many, who want it to start in late July.
‘Our management, the high-performance director and the coaches, will try and come up with some racing indoors on the rowing machine. At least we’ll have that.
‘It will be all about the physiological benefit of the training that we are doing, and trying to get that hit to prepare us then for the winter season and the following year.
‘There isn’t much more we can do, really.’
Staying healthy is one other important consideration. Athletes pushing themselves as far as they can without breaking down also compromise their immune systems, leaving them prone to head colds and other infections.
It is a concern given a bracing relevance nowadays.
‘When we have very heavy blocks of training, we would be very prone to picking up colds and all those little niggles and illnesses, because our immune system is suppressed because we are training so hard,’ she says.
‘I suppose for us now it will be all about monitoring how we are recovering. Because we are at home, we can spend more time recovering.
‘We don’t have to actually travel back and forth to the centre. But the hand-washing has stepped on a good bit.
‘We were already complaining about our dry hands and knuckles from extra handwashing!
‘But we had also been paying extra attention to cleaning the equipment we used when we were in the centre. You cleaned it before you get on it, you cleaned it after you finish your workout.
‘Then we separated the equipment so that there was enough space between them.
‘When we were in the centre, we were limiting the amount of bodies in the gym, but now we are at home, it will be just you.’
It will be a while before Monika Dukarska feels water lap against her boat again.
When the day arrives, though, she’ll be ready. This is simply one more puzzle to solve.
‘OUR DREAM HASN’T BEEN TAKEN AWAY – IT HAS BEEN POSTPONED’