SWANN’S OARSOME
Swann gears up for Olympics with a home workout
Polly Swann had a prescription for the perfect summer all written down.
A trip to the Tokyo Olympics. Busting her lungs and arms to the max. Hopefully walking away with a rowing medal even shinier than the si lver she scooped in Rio in 2016.
Then coronavirus blew the 2013 world champion’s plans out of the water.
Instead of nursing her boat to gold, she’s logging shifts as a doctor to help out the NHS in its hour of need.
It wasn’t quite how the Scots star, 32, imagined her medical career kicking off after she graduated from Edinburgh University last year only to put it on ice for one more crack at the Games.
But she said: “I just felt really strongly that I wanted to help if I could.
“Even though I knew that I would be right at the bottom of the ladder – very junior, not much help to anyone and certainly not on the front line in terms of the coronavirus crisis.
“If I was at home in lockdown, doing my training but otherwise just twiddling my thumbs, I would maybe feel frustrated.
“I had the skills that could help – so that’s why I applied.”
Which is why Polly’s cycling the 10 miles from her parents’ house in the capital to St John’s Hospital in Livingston to do rounds and see patients on a surgical ward.
It plugged some of the gaps left while other docs were shifted to deal with the Covid-19 crisis.
“So that the ball can keep rolling,” she confirms.
And the three-month stint has been just the tonic during the sporting shutdown.
She said: “It sounds so selfish but I’m really loving it. I’m used to working in a team and I get that team fix.
“It’s really nice and the guys I have been working with – the senior doctors, surgeons, nurses, physios and everyone else in between – have been really supportive. And that is nice because the Covid times are very strange.
“It’s an odd time to be working in a hospital but there’s definitely this really nice sense of everyone coming together.”
The scheme, she admits, was still a jump in at the deep end at a time when the NHS has been turned upside down.
She said: “The first few weeks, I was terrified. I’d not done anything to do with medicine for almost a year because I’ve been training full time.
“And I just felt like a deer in the headl ights. I have al l this knowledge and I was completely useless but it’s funny, it comes back really quickly.”
With British Rowing aiming to get everyone back to its base in London in September 2021, Polly’s still under orders to stay in good shape despite her gruelling job.
Fortunately, workouts on a rowing machine are a decent substitute for the real thing and her old mates at Edinburgh Uni shipped one up to her parents’ house to lend her a hand.
“Which is in the hallway,” she revealed. “And I ’ ve got a stationary bike in my mum and dad’s shed, which also means you can’t go around it. It’s totally in the way.
“Then in the living room I have a full- on weights kit.
“So we’ve got a barbell. I have 20kg discs, 10kg discs and dumbbells. A gym ball, all sorts.
“So I’ve taken over the house. My parents are not necessarily delighted about it but they’re being very patient.”
It will not be forever – or so
Swann hopes. With Covid-19 cases thankfully decreasing, the NHS will soon be able to thank her for chipping in and loan her back to rowing until the Olympics are done.
Following three years away, the comeback was all on track before everything stopped.
She collected a pairs bronze at last summer’s World Cup in Rotterdam then an assist as the Brit ish fours qual i f ied for Tokyo with fifth at the world championships in Austria.
Even so, postponing the Games by 12 months might help find an extra gear in her bid for Tokyo glory.
She says: “It’s an opportunity to get fitter because I haven’t done the full Olympic cycle.
“Potentially it’s a really good thing for me and I can kind of use it to my advantage.
“Hopefully I’ll be a whole year stronger and more in tune with the other girls.”
Even with a love of pulling on her hospital scrubs, sport still remains her passion and her joy.
Swann said: “But, you know, it’s all encompassing, you have to put your whole life on hold.
“I’m super passionate about my life as a doctor as well and also about life in general. I’m really looking forward to that stage of my life.
“But I think at the moment, I’m definitely erring on the side of ‘Oh, this is quite cool.’”