Young, Dedicated & Hungry

I’m a sucker for inspirational stories, especially the ones coming from young aspiring individuals who have a dream, work their butts off, have a serious crack at it and take others along for the ride. 

Meet rowing fan and future Olympic hopeful young gun, Charlie. When I first met Charlie, he told me he wanted to stroke the first VIII at his school. Over the years his appetite has grown and his belief has soared. Last time Charlie shared with me he wants to go to the Olympics! 

And boy do I hope he gets there! Hearing young aspirational athletes express their dream takes me back to my own sporting dreams. And while I never went to the Olympics, most of you will know what if feels like to have a dream and work towards it. 

Sport is perhaps the epitome of showcasing the entire spectrum of human emotions. We can almost feel the lows and certainly feel the ups. 

Hearing about this young man’s win brought a MASSIVE smile to my face, dare I say it felt like a win (without having done the hard work ☺).  

Here is Charlie’s story recalling his FIRST SOLO rowing regatta/race he entered on his own. 

As recalled by Charlie:

In the 19/20 summer holidays my family were planning to spend a week in Taree. I planned to row up at Taree for training over the holiday to prepare myself for the rowing camp. 

I was browsing through the upcoming regattas and noticed that there was a regatta on at Taree while we were staying there. I asked Mr. Rowe (head of rowing at St Joseph’s College) if I would be able to be entered in the men’s single division, to represent Joeys.

My preparation for the race involved 10+ kilometres of intense training against senior Joeys scullers on the Parramatta River three times a week for six weeks as well as a week individual preparation where I focused on stats and endurance on the Manning River up at Taree with my friend Tom.

I woke up in the morning before the race to the sound of my dog. She was going off her nutter and was as nervous as I was throughout the morning and I could not wait to race. While we were having breakfast dad received an email from Jack, who is the head of youth rowing at Sydney University rowing club and he offered assistance as he noticed that I was entered in the race through Joeys. 

We arrived there early and I acclimatised myself to the surroundings. The Taree summer regatta was not like the normal regattas I’ve been to. This made me feel like I stood out amongst the crowd as I was the only Joeys boy in my colours there. As I waited for my time to race I met a lot of old Joe boys as well as boys that are current Joe boys rowing for clubs and this gave me confidence and calmed my nerves. 

As I changed into my Cerise & Blue zootie, picked up my boat off the slings and carried it down to the water, the excitement went into overdrive and my heart was racing. 

As I rowed down to the start line it felt a lot longer than it normally did. 

When I saw the two divisions’ race off before me I thought to myself “keep your head in the boat, your race, your boat and out in front first”. 

The starters gun went off and I thought “get out in front, you don’t know what the others scullers are like”! 

Once I got to the 250 meter mark I knew I would have a challenge to keeping the lead against the Glebe rower on my right hand side. We were neck and neck till the 1000 meter mark, until I made a move. 

I tactically made the choice to move out dead in front of the Glebe rower so then he wouldn’t be able to see anything but my puddles. This gave me the upper hand as the Glebe rower started to fade away as he stressed about not being able to see me.

As I crossed the finish line in first place I closed my eyes and thought to myself “jeez 2km hurts so much more than a 1km”. I opened my eyes to see that I was a good four boat lengths ahead of the Glebe rower. And the pain didn’t hurt, it felt great, I wanted to do it again!

When I got out of the boat a lot of the Joeys boys came up and congratulated me on my win. One of the boys, Josh said to me that he was glad to see his old boat in good hands.”

– Charlie

Reading his story leaves me with 3 thoughts:

1. You are NEVER too young or too old to have a dream and go for it
2. Have a plan, implement it and back yourself!
3. Surround yourself with likeminded people who support your journey and who knows how far you can go

THANK YOU Charlie for sharing your enthusiastic story. I wish you all the best in your future sporting endeavours and hope you actualise all your dream(s).  

I’ll be cheering you on!