Peterborough County rower Trevor Jones representing Canada at the Olympics
He’s the first men’s single sculler to qualify for Games since 1984
Trevor Jones has shown an ability to produce “on the big stage,” says the most decorated coach in rowing history.
Dick Tonks has coached six Olympic gold medal crews, 13 world championship gold medal crews, is the only multi-time winner of World Rowing’s Coach of the Year Award, three in fact, and was honoured with the New Zealand Order of Merit. He was hired four years ago by Rowing Canada and is now co-coaching Jones with Jeremy Ivey.
Jones, a 23-year-old from Burleigh Falls, is Canada’s first men’s single sculler to qualify for the Olympics since Derek Porter finished fourth in 2000. Bob Mills won Canada its only men’s single Olympic medal in 1984 when he earned a bronze in Los Angeles.
Jones burst onto the international scene by winning back-toback gold medals at the 2017 and 2018 World Rowing Under-23 Championships.
In 2019, following surgery to repair compartment syndrome in his forearm, Jones was put in a double which failed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics at the 2019 World Rowing Championships.
Rowing Canada decided to put Jones back in a single for the final Olympic qualifying regatta postponed from 2020 to May 2021 by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jones had been absent from the single sculls scene internationally for three years when he raised eyebrows by edging out a Polish sculler pegged as an Olympic medal threat for the last Tokyo berth at the final qualifier.
The 70-year-old Tonks knew Jones had potential based on his U23 gold medals and his six-footeight frame but he wasn’t exactly sure what he had when he first began working with Jones who at one time was seen as more of a candidate for Canada’s 2024 and 2028 Olympic crews because of his youth.
“It was always going to be a big hurdle coming from uner-23s. it’s a big step and some people fail,” Tonks said. “He struggled early on and he slowly adapted to the training.”
Carol Love, who first identified Jones for the old Row To Podium program, recognized early he had an ability to push himself in races in a way few can.
Tonks started to see that about four weeks before the qualifying regatta.
“There seemed to be a noticeable difference in his approach to everything,” Tonks said. “Things just seemed to start stepping up and stepping up and stepping up. He produces on the big stage obviously.”
He won the opening qualifying heat, placed second to the Polish rower in the semifinals then outraced him to the line in a mad dash in the final grabbing the second and final Olympic berth behind a Russian rower.
”He has a temperament for the bigger races,” Tonks said.
“He really just has a talent for sculling. Some people can’t scull mentally. They just don’t like being in a boat by themselves. It takes a different kind of person. Back in the old days the people who were in the singles were a bit of the odd balls but it’s become more fashionable. He thrives in the single and I think he prefers the single.”
Ivey said the final qualifier is nicknamed the “Regatta of Death” because of the intense pressure to get to the Olympics.
Some rowers, he said, say it’s more difficult than racing at the Olympics. Ivey said Jones’ body language and demeanour leading up to a race gives off an air of confidence that he is unphased in the pressure moments.
“It’s a real talent he has which is really hard to teach people or develop within somebody. You kind of just have that. That’s one of his biggest strengths. He seems to be able to perform in the big moments,” Ivey said.
When asked about Jones’ chances in Tokyo, Tonks said he never puts the pressure of a medal expectation on his rowers. The aim is always to get to the final and put together the best possible performance and see where that lands on the results board.
“We want to make the final,” Tonks said. “Then we want the crews to perform as best they can and come off the water with a good feeling that it was the peak of their training and they’ve had a really good race whether they’re first or they’re sixth.”
When pressed whether his protégé’s best race could put him in podium contention, Tonks replied, “There is no reason why not. Everyone was picking the Polish sculler to go through. The commentators were a bit surprised at the end. Anything is possible at the Olympics.
“The Olympics is a very different regatta and strange things happen. Some people can’t handle it. This year being a COVID Olympics some people are just going to crack at the strain of the whole thing.”
Jones’s Olympics will begin with the single sculls heats on opening day of the Games on Friday.