Fence your way past low admission rates?

Data10
Thu, 20 Oct 2022 19:36:23 +0000

gardenstategal:

In my lifetime, I have known 3 rowers who were in the Olympics who had not rowed before college. That makes me think that there are plenty more!

It doesn’t take much to convert an excellent athlete from another sport into a rower. Otoh, I’ve never heard of someone taking up fencing, gumnastics, soccer, etc. in college with lots of success.

While many athletes could row at the college level, few could row at the Olympic level. For example, beyond general athleticism, the heights of the men’s 8 on the 2020 US Olympic team are listed below. All 8 members are at least 99th percentile height among US males. The average high school athlete doesn’t fall in to this group. There are also other physical advantages in terms of things like limb length, flexibility, weight/muscle distribution, body fat, etc.

Hack, Michslavich – 6’8"
Mead, Richards – 6’6"
Corrigan – 6’5"
Best, Davidson, Harrity – 6’4"

I was in the good general athleticism without previous rowing experience group. On my first practice after joining mid season, I had better rowing erg times than the majority of the novice team. However, the rowing erg time didn’t translate directly in to time in the water. My first time in the water, I could barely even stay balanced (on a pair). It wasn’t until some time later until I had a seat on a racing eight, and I started as the weakest member on the eight. I lacked technique, flexibility, timing, etc. These skills gradually improved over months of practice.

I think a large part of the reason why there are a often walk-ons with no past experience is large team sizes (rowing has largest average roster count of any NCAA women’s sport) with scoring determined by more than just a small number of the top team members, combined with a relatively small pool of HS kids with previous rowing experience compared to most other sports. Another part is the sport places a greater emphasis on athleticism over technique than a good portion of others, such as fencing.

Other sports that have a relatively small pool of HS kids can also have persons without HS experience competing at Olympic level. For example, I knew one woman who was recruited to join the Olympic bobsled team training camp, without previous bobsledding experience… She told me they recruited college track and field athletes who excelled in sports that had a good correlation with athleticism type abilities required for bobsledding. There were probably also filters for height, weight, build, and similar.