Like other athletes across all sports, John Graves has been struggling with the emotions of having his 2020 Olympic aspirations taken on a roller coaster ride of hope and disappointment.

He was in Sarasota and set to row in the U.S. men’s single trials in March and, if he won, he planned to go to the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland in May.

Then, just before trials were about to begin, they were postponed. The news was disruptive, but trials weren’t eliminated, and there was still hope they would be rescheduled and that the Olympic qualifier would still happen – until FISA canceled the qualifier.

But when the Olympics were postponed all Graves could do was wonder how it would all play out. When reached by phone on the morning the IOC decision to postpone was announced, Graves’ reaction went like this:

“I’m just lying on the floor reading twitter. I feel confident that it is the right decision to postpone the Olympics, but just for me personally, it’s challenging because I was pretty confident this year would be my last year. Obviously, I don’t have all the answers right now but, this kind of opens up a whole new can of worms.”

A full week later when the new Olympic schedule was announced for next summer, Graves said he could not leave rowing without giving one last shot at getting to an Olympics. He was hitting reset, turning back the calendar, and beginning to plan out the best way to get his final season back and finish his career, which he hopes is done on the racecourse in Tokyo. He wants to be an Olympian. Or he at least wants to be able to say that he tried one last time.

It’s the path he has been walking for most of the last ten years.

“I hesitate to say I have any concrete plans at the moment,” Graves said. “The new dates just got named, and there is still so much up in the air, like what the qualifier dates will look like, what the trials dates would look like, stuff like that.

“It’s hard to plan exactly the next 15 months or so. At the moment, it’s challenging to know that we put in a ton of work this year and we didn’t really move the needle at all as far as getting through trials, or at least selecting some of the US boats. I would feel better about stuff if we had at least done that and I could focus on the qualifier as kind of one step away from the Olympics, but now we are essentially where we were a year ago.”

Graves’ international journey has lasted from 2009 through 2019 including roster spots on two under-23 world championship teams, six senior world teams, and the 2016 Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland.

He wanted to try one more time. And 2020 was supposed to be different – different in that for the first time in his career, Graves was heading to trials with the intention that this will be his last campaign. His ultimate goal is, and always has been, an Olympic team bid. But time is running out for Graves, and this spring was to be all or nothing.

While most athletes don’t like to think, or even talk about a final year, Graves is at ease with all of it, and happy to be in the single again.

For Graves, this spring came on the heels of an up and down year that saw his plans for competing in the double he had rowed in at the 2017 and 2018 world championships fall apart, to losing at spring singles trials in 2019, and then spending the summer rowing in the bow of the 2019 men’s quad that finished out of Olympic qualification at the World Rowing Championships last summer.

The experience, Graves said, left him reflecting on how to accomplish his goal of racing in an Olympics, and moved him back into thinking his best shot was the single. So, he started training again, and mapped out a path that – if successful – would have had him winning the Championship single last fall in the Head of the Charles, winning trails, and competing for a spot in the Olympics at the final qualifier.

He checked off the Head of the Charles win, but the COVID-19 crisis wiped out the rest of that plan for this season. But it did not end his desire to row one last campaign.

“This definitely will be my last go at it, and I think it’s really important that I put myself in an environment, and a situation, where I felt I was getting everything out of what I am putting into it,” he said.

“This fall was a moment for me to take a second and figure out what I really wanted out of the next year, and how I can best go about doing that. And for me, the single was the best way to go after the goal of qualifying a men’s sculling boat for the Olympics, and to use everything I’ve learned over my career.

“And then, regardless of the result, be happy finishing my career going as fast as I personally can, and being able to live with that.”

There have been no announcements yet from World Rowing about how, or when, the remaining Olympic qualifications will be run, but the one certainty not changed by the postponements and disruption of the COVID-19 shutdowns is that getting to the Olympics will be a long and competitive battle for whoever comes out on top of the U.S. Olympic Trials.

The men’s single is not a pre-qualified U.S. boat, and earning a place in Tokyo will mean winning one of the final two spots available for the single at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta, where the field will be incredibly difficult to get through.

But the first step for any U.S. sculler hoping to be in Tokyo will be the U.S. trials.

There were 25 men’s single scullers scheduled to race trials before they were canceled.

Among those on the schedule were Kevin Meador, who rowed the U.S. men’s single the last two world championships, and a long list of single scullers who have raced successfully the last few seasons, including Luke Wilhelm, Jonathan Kirkegaard, and Matt O’Leary. All three rowed in the finals of the 2019 U.S. Trials V, from where Meador earned his spot on the world championship squad.

Of that group, Graves is arguably among the most experienced and technically skilled. But he is also among the smallest of the athletes. In fact, when Graves first began sculling internationally, he competed as a lightweight.

He raced the lightweight single in the 2010 Under-23 World Championships and he was in a lightweight double during the 2012 U.S. trials for non-qualified boats. But he was not a natural lightweight, and the experience of making weight for every event nearly led to his quitting rowing.

“Being 154 pounds at double trials in 2012, I was just miserable,” he said. “My natural weight was probably 175 to 180, and it just became very challenging to me. The success of the 2012 Olympic trials for me was just getting to the weigh-in, being under 70kilos.

“I was pretty close to quitting in 2012 because it just wasn’t fun for me anymore. I just wanted to stop rowing.”

Instead, Graves went to the Craftsbury Sculling Center the next summer, where he was coached by Dan Roock, who tuned his thinking around.

“Dan Roock helped me find a way to be as fast as possible, and to let my weight kind of just fall where it naturally does,” Graves said. “He was very empowering in a sense of it really gave me confidence that I could be fast at my natural weight.”

Graves switched to the open single that fall and experienced his first successes as a heavyweight sculler. He won at the fall speed order, and then the spring NSR. In 2014, Graves rowed in a Craftsbury quad coached by Roock with his brother Peter, Steve Whelpley and Ben Dann, won a bronze medal at World Cup III, and finished eighth at that year’s world championship. He then teamed up with Dann to row the double in the next world championship. That was followed by the 2016 quad that won U.S. trials but failed to earn an Olympic bid at the Lucerne qualification regatta.

Graves went back to the single and rowed in the finals of the 2017 Henley Royal Regatta and lost to Matthew Dunham. Following Henley, Graves teamed up in the double with Ben Davison, who was part of that Craftsbury 2016 quad.

After rowing in the 2017 and 2018 world championships, Davison decided to go to the U.S. men’s training center in Oakland and put himself in the mix for a sweep crew and Graves went into the 2019 quad.

When he came home after the world championship, he made the decision to go back to the single for this last run, and he is happy with his decision and ready for the challenges to come.

“I am fully committed and putting everything I have into this,” Graves said. “I think being in the single this go around gives me the type of ownership of the process I want. In the single, your failures are your own, and your success are your own and that’s the type of clarity I’m looking for as I finish things up. I have my eyes fully opened to the fact that it is incredibly competitive internationally and that’s exciting to me.

“I’m a smaller athlete, probably one of the smallest heavyweights in the world. But I also think that on the technical side, I’m right there with some of the better guys and I think that’s an area that allows me to really operate right at the top end of my potential, using technique to get everything out of my physiology, and just getting as much speed out of it on the water as I can,” he said.

Graves said while most of the world’s heavy scullers are bigger, there are other successful athletes he models himself after. “A guy that I have modeled a lot of stuff I’ve done after is (Belgium sculler) Hannes Obreno. He was fourth in Rio and won Henley against (Mahe Drysdale) in 2016.

“He and I are virtually identical as far as size, erg score, everything. I look at a guy like that and think there is no reason I can’t be doing what he’s doing. He is a great example of a guy who is the same size as me who is performing at a super high level and gives hope to middleweight athletes of the world.

“I fully expect to be pushed totally to the limit, but that is part of the process. I’m excited because I feel like there is nothing holding me back from doing everything I need to do to get myself ready to get the single going as fast as I can. That to me is really all I can ask for.

“I can only control what I can control, and there might be someone out there who is going faster than me in the single and beats me at trials, and that’s OK. I definitely hope that doesn’t happen, but as long as I am putting down my best stuff, that’s what’s important to me.”

Most of what Graves said about trials and 2020 being his last season he said during an interview just before the March single trials in Sarasota were postponed, before the qualification regattas for the spring were canceled, and before the Tokyo Games were pushed back to 2021.

But none of his thinking has changed. The only change – however big it is today – is that now he has to plan for another 15 or more months of training and racing. Hitting reset is not as easy as just deciding to keep going and not let his career end without a final race.   

“For me, that’s the challenging part,” Graves said. “It’s not that my training this year has been a waste, I felt like I showed up ready in Sarasota and I was ready to begin that process and that path to qualifying.

“We didn’t get to answer questions, or get anything done. So now, I wait to hear what the new FISA schedule will be, wait to hear what USRowing comes out with, and then start to chart a path forward again.”

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Tuesday’s news that the International Olympic Committee was postponing the 2020 Games brought some measure of relief to athletes wondering when and if the Olympics would be held. Now comes the hard part. Moving the Games will force many Olympic hopefuls to re-evaluate their decisions, especially those eying retirement after Tokyo. And while it will open the door to athletes who didn’t reach their peak this time around, it may also close the door to those not motivated for a five-year quadrennial. With a summer season of any sort looking increasingly unlikely at all levels, it’s time to shift our focus to a possible return to racing in the fall, with the hope that things return to normal next year. Training-wise, that means resetting your periodized training plan and starting off with a general preparation period. This phase entails long training pieces, with loads of cross-training, worked into the program. You can then use the fall season for a more specific preparatory period with a high volume of rowing and long-distance races thrown in to keep things fun. After an interim preparatory phase of strength and general endurance training in the early winter months, you can begin peaking for an exciting summer in 2021. First and foremost, however, it is important to stay healthy and support your family, friends, and community. We are in this together and we will get through it together, too.

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When the decision to postpone the 2020 Olympics was announced Tuesday, the news did not come as a surprise to most athletes training in the hopes of rowing for a medal in Tokyo this summer.

Over the last several days, athletes and sports governing associations around the world have called for the International Olympic Committee to postpone, while Canada and Australia announced that they would not go to Tokyo this summer regardless.

And with each passing day and announcement, and as the worldwide battle to contain the Covid-19 virus brought more restrictions to normal life, hopes that the 2020 Tokyo Games could be held were diminished.

“I think over the past couple of days, it’s become clear that this was going to happen, especially when some other Olympic teams started pulling out,” said U.S. 2016 Olympian Austin Hack.

“Even as recently as the beginning of last week, when the shelter in place order was coming out, I was optimistic that the new measures being taken pretty much worldwide to contain this virus were going to be effective enough that we would still be able to have some kind of Olympics this summer. But in the past week it became clear that this was the only path,” he said.

“Given the current situation, postponing was the right call unfortunately. I think maybe it was theoretically possible that the Games still could have gone on but I think from a health perspective there was a lot of risk given how unpredictable the current situation is.”

That was the reaction of multiple athletes, coaches and rowing officials yesterday who said they felt that canceling the 2020 Games was the correct decision considering the rapid spread and yet unknown course of the Pandemic, but also said the felt while decision brought finality to the questions of would the Olympics be held, and how could athletes under the worldwide lockdown train successfully – the decision left a whole new set of unanswered questions.

Still unknown is when the Games will be rescheduled. The announcement said that they had been postponed until next year, but no specific date has been set.

And that leaves a level of uncertainty that will have many athletes questioning how to continue pursuing their Olympic quests, or to if they will continue. During an interview Tuesday, IOC Vice President Anita DeFrantz said the IOC leadership understands the implications postponement brings, but does not know when an answer on rescheduling could be made.

“I certainly wish I knew the answer to that because while the decision gives the athletes some certainty, it’s not going to be July of this year, it gives them far less certainty for when it will be, and I know that is really hard for athletes.”

DeFrantz, who won a bronze medal in the US women’s eight in the 1976 Olympics, and was part of the team that could not compete due to the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games, said she understands what the athletes are now going through, and the decisions they face.

“Athletes will have to decide if they can do this for another year, or if it is time to get on with their other life because training is such an intensive experience. So many decisions have been made to get to the point where they can train, and of course now, they can’t train,” she said.

“It’s just really difficult and having been in a similar situation without the consequences of infecting others and causing death, I know it’s just a terrible situation for athletes to be in. They want to do the right thing, but it’s hard to know what the right thing to do is.”

The Right Thing

What the “right thing” will be is something that is being contemplated today by Olympic hopefuls everywhere, and those decisions will mean the end of international careers for some while for others there are will be considerations of family and career impact.

Hack, who rowed in the 2016 U.S. men’s eight had plans to focus on his building his career post-Tokyo 2020, and said he is now unsure what he will do, especially with the lack of an announced new date for 2021.

“I’m mentally still processing this,” Hack said. “I try not to get too worked up about things I can’t control, but I was definitely planning to take some big steps in starting a new career this year, and if I am coming back to the team, that’s going to get delayed yet another year.”

“I think I feel the way that all the other athletes feel, both in rowing and in other sports, that adding another year to the already stressful Olympic cycle definitely is going to take even more sacrifices from loved ones and athletes planning on getting moving on careers. I understand it, but it’s a little bit of a tough pill to swallow,” said Hack.

Right now, Hack and U.S. athletes in both Oakland and Princeton training centers, are working out in isolation due to stay at home orders in both of those states. Like Hack, two-time Olympic gold medalist Meghan Musnicki was training on an erg borrowed from the U.S. training center Tuesday morning.

After winning her second gold medal in the women’s eight in Rio, and then taking time away from the sport in 2017 and 2018, Musnicki returned to the Princeton training center and was focused on rowing in Tokyo.

Tuesday morning, Musnicki was thinking about what her next steps would be, but seemed intent on continuing.  

“I’ve been at the training center for the better part of the last 12 years, since 2008,” Musnicki said. “Obviously, I’ve been back and forth a little bit in the last couple of years, but the last 12 years of my life for all intent and purposes has been this. I’ve got to think about it. I meet with [women’s head coach Tom Terhaar] Thursday, he’s meeting with all of us.

“I’m not ready to walk away from this, it’s devastating and really hard to wrap my head around it in some respects but in other respects the competitive side of me is, I came back a year and a half ago because I wanted to train to make the Tokyo Olympics. And that’s what I am going to continue to do.

While Musnicki is one of the senior veterans on the team and was intending this to be her final Olympics, she hopes she has another year in her and does not want the deciding factor for this cycle to be the postponement.

“I hope so,” she said. “That’s what I’m banking on. I’m not going to let this be the deciding factor about whether I make my third and final Olympic team. If I don’t make the Olympic team, I want it to be because I’ve been injured, or I’m not good enough, or not helping the boat go faster. I don’t want it to be for a factor that is completely out of my control like that.

In Boston, the pressure to make a decision is just as pressing on Gevvie Stone, who is currently training with two other Cambridge Boat Club women Olympic hopefuls. Stone rowed in the past two Olympics and won a silver medal in the women’s single in Rio.

She had plans to contend for a place on the U.S. team and Tuesday said she does not know if she can put another full year of training in. Stone’s decision will also be impacted by the fact that she is a doctor and had put off her residency as an emergency room physician the last two seasons to train for the 2020 Olympics.

Her residency is scheduled to resume in August.

“A little part of me could see [the postponement] coming over the last few days, especially with the announcements of Canada and Australia pulling out Monday,” Stone said.

“We actually had a meeting [Monday] about the fact that it was inevitable, that it would be postponed, so I can’t say that [Tuesday’s] announcement was the one big blow. It’s been kind of a gradual tearing, and it’s hard. Putting everything into perspective, this is really hard,” she said. “But I am lucky it’s not a life or death situation for me, which is what a lot of people in the world are facing right now.

“I have put a lot on hold to train for this summer, and had been feeling fit and fast and excited to race. I was also excited to get back to residency. I was supposed to start August 17. So, a lot is up in the air. I’ve been in contact with friends and family to kind of hear their thoughts.

“Even just figuring out the options for me, I’m not sure another year is not even an option,” she said. “I’m a person who likes answers, and I have very few answers right now. And it’s hard, really hard.”

The Path for Coaches and Officials

Following a conference call between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and IOC International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, a statement on the postponement did not include a new date. The released statement said only that the Games would “be rescheduled to a date beyond 2020 but not later than summer 2021.”

USRowing followed that announcement with a statement that supporting the decision, but the association was also waiting for a new date.

“Today’s announcement from the IOC and IPC established a time frame for the postponement as starting in 2021 and not to go past the summer of 2021,” the statement read. “Once the IOC and IPC set dates and FISA establishes its qualifying events, USRowing’s high-performance teams will meet and determine the appropriate selection process for the rescheduled Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

See the full statement here.

In the meantime, coaches and athletes are on hold and are planning meetings to see which athletes will stay on and which will not.

“Honestly, right now we are sort of developing a plan,” said U.S. men’s head coach Mike Teti. “Everyone has been great, they’ve been doing the shelter in place, and they have their own ergs. But for some guys, it’s going to be a major decision to stay another year. We have a few guys getting married. Some have career plans they’ve made.

“I sent out an email and we’re going to have individual meetings with each guy and then we will go from there. We don’t know what’s going to happen. When they said the Olympics are going to be sometime in 2021, is it February?

“I think people are assuming it’s the summer, but no one really knows for sure so to me, I think let’s wait till it’s definitive when it’s going to be. And then come up with a game plan for that,” Teti said.

“In the meantime, our number one priority is to make sure all our athletes are healthy and I think it’s been good so far, no one has gotten the virus and everyone seems healthy, so in that perspective we’re in good shape.”

Teti said while he knows the pressure the postponement is putting on athletes, he said the Pandemic and the worldwide effort for containment, is most important.

“I think this puts things in perspective. The real key to life is figuring out what’s important and what’s not important, and for me family is most important, and then you go from there,” he said. “We are a little inconvenienced for a period of time and we’ll move on and be stronger for it.”

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While the International Olympic Committee continues to hold off making a decision about running the Tokyo Olympics as scheduled, both the Canadian and Australian Olympic Committees have announced they would not send teams this summer, ballooning the pressure to cancel or postpone the Games.

The Australian and Canadian actions came after IOC updated their position Sunday that they are now considering plans to postpone that 2020 Olympics, but are not considering cancellation, and would announce their decision in the next four weeks.

Addressing the media following the IOC’s decision Australian Olympic Committee CEO Matt Carroll said the AOC executives met Monday morning and considered the impact the spread of Covid-19 is having on travel and daily life in Australia and concluded that they would not send athletes to Tokyo this summer, but to plan instead for the Games to be held next summer.

“The decision is they unanimously agree that the Australian Olympic Team could not be assembled in the changes circumstance both here and abroad. We have to look after not just athletes and officials, but also their families who were feeling concerned for their sons and their daughters,” Carroll said.

“So, with these travel restrictions in place by the government, which we respect and understand, we understand the need to keep Australians safe, combined with the decision of the International Olympic Committee, we decided to plan for the hosting of the Games in 2021 in Tokyo.”

In announcing their decision, the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic committees released their decision that Canada would not send athletes to Tokyo this summer and called for the postponement until 2021 in the following statement:

“The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC), backed by their Athletes’ Commissions, National Sports Organizations and the Government of Canada, have made the difficult decision to not send Canadian teams to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer of 2020.  

“The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC), backed by their Athletes’ Commissions, National Sports Organizations and the Government of Canada, have made the difficult decision to not send Canadian teams to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer of 2020.  

The COC and CPC urgently call on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to postpone the Games for one year and we offer them our full support in helping navigate all the complexities that rescheduling the Games will bring. While we recognize the inherent complexities around a postponement, nothing is more important than the health and safety of our athletes and the world community. 

This is not solely about athlete health – it is about public health. With COVID-19 and the associated risks, it is not safe for our athletes, and the health and safety of their families and the broader Canadian community for athletes to continue training towards these Games. In fact, it runs counter to the public health advice which we urge all Canadians to follow.”

That growing call for action was amplified Monday in the following joint statement by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees:

“The progress reflected in today’s IOC update to the global athlete community is an important step in providing clarity, but our athlete community continues to face enormous ambiguity surrounding the 2020 Games in Tokyo. Having spent countless hours communicating with IOC leadership, our peers around the world, our NGBs and the athletes we serve, we know the difficult obstacles ahead and we are all appreciative that the IOC has heard our concerns and needs, and is working to address them as quickly as possible.

“Every day counts. We remain steadfast in our recommendation that Team USA athletes continue to heed the advice of public health officials and prioritize their health and wellness over all else. At the same time we are eager to continue to explore alternatives to ensure all athletes have a robust and fulfilling Olympic and Paralympic experience, regardless of when that can safely occur. Together we will find solutions that keep the spirit of the Games alive.”

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USRowing announced Tuesday afternoon the postponement of the 2020 U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Team Trials – Rowing II scheduled for April 13-18 at Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida.

According to the announcement, “USRowing’s Olympic & Paralympic Selection Procedures are currently under review and will be amended. The USRowing High Performance Committee is holding discussions regarding a new timeline and events that may be possible for the selection of the team. As soon as this is finalized, the information will be passed along.”

The USRowing announcement comes after statements from the International Olympic Committee and World Rowing taking the position that the Olympics will go on as planned. For now.

The IOC released its statement as an official communique even as national sports federations around the world work on contingency plans for the distribution of the remaining roster spots after qualification events were canceled last week.

Shortly after issuing the communique, World Rowing followed with an update. In their statement, FISA said it was working closely with the IOC and is continuing to study solutions to filling the remaining spots that were supposed to be filled through qualification regattas that were canceled Saturday.

“In particular reference to qualification for the Olympic Games, FISA recognises the IOCs duty to take a coordinated approach in addressing the modifications to the qualification systems of all sports caused by event cancellations due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The importance of giving as much certainty to our athletes and the rowing community as soon as possible is a high priority. FISA has been in daily contact with the IOC and aims to finalise changes to the qualification system with the IOC as soon as possible ahead of the planned IOC deadline of early April. The next communication will be posted as soon as agreement is reached with the IOC Executive Board,” the FISA statement read.

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• Tom Aggar (GBR)
• Caryn Davies (USA)
• Katherine Grainger (GBR)
• Eleanor Logan (USA)
• Greg Searle (GBR)
• Andrew T Hodge (GBR)

Created in 1990, the Thomas Keller Medal celebrates athletes who have had an outstanding career in rowing. It honours those who have shown exemplary sportsmanship and technical mastery of the sport as well as having shown a legendary aspect both in and outside of their rowing career.
Finalists Bios
Tom Aggar – Great Britain
Aggar is a legend of para-rowing. He first raced internationally in 2007 and instantly found success, beginning a winning streak that lasted for the next four years. This included Aggar winning gold in the para men’s single sculls at the 2008 Paralympic Games. This was the debut Games for para-rowing. Aggar continued through to the London 2012 Paralympic Games, but missed out on a medal. He persisted and came back to take bronze the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games before retiring.
Caryn Davies – United States
Davies is described as the epitome of the scholar-athlete. Having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Harvard University in 2005 and a Doctor of Law degree from Columbia University in 2013, she also was twice Olympic Champion and a four-time World Champion between 2002 and 2012. She has stroked the USA women’s eight repeatedly since its winning streak began in 2006 and helped the boat set two World Best Times. Davies then went on to do an MBA at Oxford University in Great Britain and during that time she stroked the women’s Oxford boat to victory in the 2015 Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.
Katherine Grainger – Great Britain
Grainger is Great Britain’s most decorated female Olympian with five Olympic medals including gold from the London 2012 Olympic Games. These medals show Grainger’s all-round brilliance and longevity in the sport having won Olympic medals in the women’s quadruple sculls, pair and double sculls. Grainger also has won eight medals at the World Rowing Championships. Off the water Grainger achieved a PhD in law and, now retired, stays actively involved in rowing.
Eleanor Logan – United States
Logan became the United States’ greatest Olympic women’s rower after winning her third consecutive Olympic gold at the Rio 2016 Olympics. These medals all came from being part of the formidable US women’s eight. But Logan has also competed in other boats including the women’s single, pair and four at World Championship level.
Greg Searle – Great Britain
Between 1990 and 2000 Searle raced at three Olympic Games and at seven World Rowing Championships. During this time he won Olympic gold in 1992 and Olympic silver in 1996 as well as five World Championship medals in a variety of sweep boat classes, from the eight to the four to the coxed pair, as well as in one sculling event, the men’s single sculls. Following a fourth-place finish in the men’s pair at the Sydney Games, Searle retired from the sport for nine years, only to come back and compete at the highest level of competition in his late thirties. He finished his rowing career by medalling at the London 2012 Olympic Games, 20 years after competing at his first Olympic Games in 1992.
Andrew T Hodge – Great Britain
A three-time Olympic Champion, Hodge has been a mainstay among Great Britain’s elite squad for 15 years. This was despite a bout of illness that saw Hodge having to fight to get back into his country’s top boats in 2016. He managed to swap successfully between the men’s eight, four and pair during his career which ended with gold in the men’s eight at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
The winner will be announced on 29 June 2017 and awarded at the 2017 World Rowing Cup III in Lucerne, Switzerland on Saturday evening, 8 July 2017. During the award ceremony, an 18-carat gold medal will be bestowed by Dominik Keller, the son of FISA’s former president Thomas Keller, to the winner.
For a full list of winners, please click here. http://www.worldrowing.com/athletes/thomas-keller-medal

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