I never thought that I could feel so elated about coming third at anything and yet here I am absolutely thrilled with my third place medal. That's me top left in case any of you forgot just how goofy I could look in photos.
So why so thrilled with third? Oh, many reasons, maybe it's the fact that I thought my back injury might prevent me from ever rowing again let alone winning a medal of any color. Maybe it's because like many of the girls I was still only a novice at the beginning of last season. It could be the countless mornings of dragging my butt out of bed, to go out in the cold, wet, sleet, snow, rain, wind, bugs, heat, mud, poo, wakes and everything else that makes the Thames such a "special" place to row. Perhaps it's Coach Tom's words "you'll learn to love rowing Julie" or the teammates and cox who were always there slogging it out with me. The 1/2 hour tests, the 2k tests, the weights, the core and all those on water drills. Maybe it's that in this moment we proved to ourselves that we are no longer intermediates, we really are a strong cohesive senior 8.
All though all of these reasons are true, the one reason that stands out above the rest hasn't even happened yet. I'm thrilled with that bronze medal because of what it represents...
POTENTIAL!
This is perhaps the most exciting time in a athlete's career when you start believing that anything is possible.
On that note there was the 8 duking it out with Oxford city over the silver... they took it by less than a second. The GB National team Jrs took the gold by a boat-length. One boat length separated us from gold...that is such motivation for next year... I can't wait!
Chris Carlson (cox), Kate DeBruyn (stroke), Julie Lewis (7), Hayley Cripps (6), Lou Bartlett (5), Amelia Smith (4), Kelly Thomas (3), Elizabeth McLoughlin (2), Sofia Nilsson (bow)
