The Psychology Of Women's Rowing

There's a good article here from The Australian, which has interviews with members of the Australian women's eight that won gold at the World Cup earlier this month. It has some insight into their training and sports psychology, as well as discussing how the crew has come together since Athens, when rower Sally Robbins 'blew up' ahead of the finish line, and how the squad has handled the extra pressure and media scrutiny (excerpts below).

Commitment to each other has now reached a level where there’s no need to tiptoe around dramas, be they real or imagined, says Kate Hornsey. “In the past there’ve been concerns with crews when things haven’t been said because they didn’t want to upset anyone, but now we’ve got strategies to deal with that. You can get your point across without crushing a person. But that works both ways – if you’re going to give it, you’ve got to be willing to take it.” She believes a bigger boat also spreads the dramas. “We get to the point in training where we’re almost breaking, we’re shattered mentally. So it’s nice to have others around to share that – they’re suffering with you.”

[Lizzie] Patrick [coxswain] reckons female rowers suffer more from these uncertainties than males. “From what I’ve observed, men can row with a bit of fracture – they just row hard – whereas women seem to be quite uneasy with drama and uncertainty. I feel terrible saying that, but I think we’ve all got to work to our strengths.” And one of women’s strengths is inclusiveness. “What we have seems to be working so far, so we’ll keep doing it.”

There's also some inspiration to those of us that don't quite have height in our favor:

Australian female crews tend to be smaller than their rivals – average height of this eight is the mid-170cms while weight is in the low 70kgs.

[170 centimeters is 5.58 feet and 70 kgs is 154 lbs.]

You can watch a clip of the crew winning gold at the World Cup here.