The 2016 US Paralympic rowing team took a first, tentative step toward Rio with the naming of Helman Roman and Laura Goodkind as the Trunk/Arms double (TA 2X) on Wednesday morning on Mercer Lake. Since the US did not qualify the event at the 2015 World Championships, the double will head to the final Paralympic Qualification Regatta on April 21-23 on Lake Varese in Gavirate, Italy, where they will need to place top two to earn a spot in the Rio Paralympic Games.
The double raced the trial uncontested with a time of 4:38.2, but that doesn't tell the whole story, as the crew emerged from a selection camp this year, a mostly new development for US para-rowing. The camp included three women and five men, and Roman and Goodkind were chosen for the trials about a month ago.
The crew came together after Goodkind went to Miami to row with Roman, a week after which they raced in Sarasota before heading to selection camp.
"We proved to be the top male and top female out of the camp, so that sealed the deal," Roman said. "Since then, it has been a lot of training; twice a day, six days a week."
The duo was happy about their row in the trial, but were already talking about improvements by the time they got off the water.
"Today was a good day," Roman said. "It was not the best row we had, but we know that nothing is given to us at this point. We haven't won anything yet. We just have to go to Italy and qualify the boat right now.
"We have really excellent motivation to row faster," Goodkind added. "We do well when we have the underdog mentality, so this is going to light that fire that we need to perform at our optimal level."
Both athletes admit to thinking ahead to Rio, but are adamant that they are not going to get ahead of themselves at this point.
Of course, but Italy's gotta be first," Roman said. "We gotta qualify the boat. There's no other thing."
"We see Rio, but we have to remember that there's a process to go through to get to Rio," Goodkind said. "That process means that first, we have to amp up the competitive spirit within practice so we can simulate that race environment. Then we to the training camp to learn more from all different people.
"Then when we see our competition, we will have the realization that this is what we need to do, these are who we need to beat, looking it as, yes, these are just humans, and at the same time they're our opponents, so we have to always be ahead of them."
Roman, whose ankle was shattered in 2009 in an IED explosion while he was serving in the Army in Afghanistan, notes that no matter how hard he pushes himself, Goodkind can match it.
"The thing I really like about Laura is that you can go as deep as you can and she will be right there with you," he said. "I've been seeing that every time we're on the boat. I know I'm giving my 200%, and I know she is too, there's no doubt."
"We absolutely put our heart into it," Goodkind agreed. "We're invested in this journey together, and I think what's really good is that we have open communication. If we think that there is something one of us or both of us can do better, we let the other person know. We don't let it fester. We don't let it build up. We talk about it.
"So, we have a kind of thing almost after every practice where we dish out what we can we do better, what did we do well. It's very important to have that open communication in a double. We have so much determination to travel throughout this journey. It is like we are lit up, you know."
Goodkind, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as an infant and has been having major reconstructive surgeries since age 3, found rowing in 2014 after her doctor suggested that she seek out a support group to help her cope with a swallowing disorder (which may or may not be related to CP, and might be a rare condition called achalasia). Goodkind's response was to do a search on paralympic sports opportunities near her home in Santa Monica CA (despite her doctor's admonishment that she "is not doing sports"). After doing a search on a 50-mile radius from her home, she found a rowing club 40 miles away.
"Okay, it's 40 miles away, but yeah; rowing sounds good," Goodkind recalls thinking. Her doctor conceded, but told her she needed to explain she could exercise only for 30 minutes.
"I thought, I'm not going to walk in and say,' Hi, I'm not well,'" she said. "But what was very fascinating is that I went to that practice and suddenly I had a purpose, and quickly my health got better and better and better. The more I rowed, the healthier I got.
"It's been such a blessing, because it has restored my health and also it's where I found solid ground - even though it's water," she said with a laugh. "I'm really fortunate she had that idea it would be helpful for me to integrate with people who are going through similar challenges, because I was raised as though I was able-bodied, so I was never in the adaptive sports world until then. It's been a really excellent integration opportunity and I'm really appreciative and grateful for her recommendation and how it transpired."
Goodkind has found that rowing also puts a positive spin on her ailment.
"One thing I have found that is great about rowing is that in the medical field, I was stumping all these doctors worldwide. They said 'We don't know what to do, we don't know how to help you, but we want to study your body; it's fascinating,'" she said. "And I felt like a fish in a fishbowl, whereas in rowing, finally my body is being seen for the positive application that it can have in life, not just the anomaly in the medical sense, but the anomaly in the physical sense, because I have the CP plus the swelling plus other stuff. At least in rowing, it's the focus on what my body can do right and well."
Roman was introduced to adaptive sports while in rehab after his injury while spending a year in Walter Reed Hospital. He took up handcycling, in which he competed for over four years, during which time he met US para-rower Jacqui Kapinowski (LINK FEATURES HERE).
"We used to handcycle together a lot, and about a year and a half ago, she told me that rowing would be really good cross-training for me to get faster in handcycling, so I started going to Miami Beach Rowing Club," Roman recalled. "I really loved it because it was a really hard sport. For you to be ready for 1000 meters, you've got to practice at least 80000 meters a week, so it was really physically demanding, and mentally, too. That's what really got me into the sport. I loved it because it's hard." From here the crew heads home to train, then flies to Italy for a two-week training camp prior to the qualification regatta.
"We're going to take that camp and do the best we can to learn and get faster to qualify the boat," Roman said. "There's nothing else (laughs); no podiums or anything, just qualify the boat. Anything else, it will be a bonus, but qualify the boat."
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