19 year old lightweight Patricia Obee has had a busy 2010 so far. Last spring, as a freshmen at Oregon State, she set the freshmen 6k record and raced in the team's Varsity 8+. Then during the summer, Obee raced in the Canadian U23 LW2x and W8+, winning bronze in the eight as an emergency alternate.

row2k - How did you make the Canadian U23 team this summer?
Patricia Obee - I got invited to the selection camp in London, Ontario based off my scores I had been submitting throughout the year. Then following Pac-10’s I took my finals early and left to make camp on time. For selection, we were down to four lightweights for the two spots in the double. Over a couple days, we did a 1500 meter matrix and everyone got to race in every seat and combination, then from those results they were able to rank us and they selected the top two for the boat. I was selected for bow, then to officially make the team we had to do a 2k time trial to see if we could make the gold medal standard for our event. The time trial went great because we had a raging tail and went 7:03 which is around world record time, so we made the team.

row2k - Who was your doubles partner?
Patricia Obee - Liz Fenje was my doubles partner and she was also my partner last year at the Canada summer games. She was a freshman on Stanford’s lightweight team this past season and was 6-seat in their eight that won IRA’s.

row2k - What did you do between selection and U23’s?
Patricia Obee - We trained in London for a month and a half, and then trained in Poland prior to the start of worlds at the course that hosted the 09 senior world championships. Poland was awesome because the food was really good and everything was free. The course there was great because it is a perfectly buoyed course and the hotel we were at was right on the course. Then from there, we arrived in Belarus on the Monday before racing began.

row2k - How did the racing go in the double?
Patricia Obee - The favorites in our event were Greece (same double that won the event last year) and Germany (one sculler that won the LW single last year). Our heat went well and we won it pretty easily. We had control of the race the length of the course and didn’t need to sprint or anything. Our semifinal against the Germans didn’t go as well. It was a huge tailwind for the race and we raced it pretty low. Liz and I weren’t really rowing the same rhythm for that race but we still got second and made the A Final.

Then in the final, for some reason we abandoned our race plan we had been using for the whole summer. We thought we could beat Germany for the bronze, so if we stuck with the lead group and stayed ahead of the Germans we would do well. We led them through 500 but were going way too hard and by the 1000 other crews started walking through us. It was probably one of the most uncomfortable races I’ve been in. Sweden passed us in the last 250 to knock us into fifth, and we had just handled them pretty easily the day before. We never really found our rhythm in the final.

row2k - You ended up doubling into the Canadian Heavyweight 8+, how did that come about?
Patricia Obee - The night before the eight’s heat, my coach told us that one of the girls in the eight was still really sick. She knew I had sweep experience so they asked me to row in the eight for the heat (which was just a race for lanes). So, I rowed in the heat, and that was the first time I rowed with that group. Since that race didn’t really matter, our race plan was to just keep it under a 30 to conserve energy. They even changed my rig so that I was rigged very light, and the coxswain even told me to pull lighter because I was going too hard!

Then for the eight final, I was still pretty upset over the LW2x final, so it helped to get right back on the water a couple hours later to race again. Between the races it was pretty chaotic; they had a specific cool down for me to do, along with a cold shower and ice bath for my legs. They were even giving me all sorts of food to try to get me to be a heavyweight as soon as possible!

row2k - How did the final go?
Patricia Obee - The eight final was really fun. Even the warm up was awesome. We were hitting some starts at 48 to 50 and going so fast. It was everything I could do just to hang on. The first part of the race was great; we dropped Belarus immediately and didn’t settle for probably 300 meters. I can remember thinking, ‘How are these big people moving so fast?’ because normally I’m pretty quick on the slide but it was everything I could do just to keep up. We were level with the US through 500 and it was pretty much four boats across for most of the race from there. We were fighting with Germany for third until we were able to sprint through them in the last 500. I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were so I had no idea we medaled. I was a little upset we didn’t win, but everyone else was pretty excited. It was the first U23 medal for the Canadian women in about five years, so everyone was pretty excited. That whole day was probably the best experience of my whole life. The medal ceremony was great but all I could think about was that I would have to wait a whole year to get the chance to win again.

row2k - What did you do after U23’s?
Patricia Obee - Following U23’s, I went straight to Welland, Ontario for the Commonwealth Games. The countries there were a mix of U23 athletes and senior team athletes that didn’t make this year’s senior team. The racing was a lot of fun, it was two heavyweight girls and two lightweight girls and between the four of us, we raced every event. I ended up racing seven times over the weekend and I won in the single, the double, the pair dash (500 m), and the quad. Then we got silver in the pair 2k, and I raced in the mixed 8 that got the bronze.

From the Commonwealth Games I went straight to Canadian Henley and ended up racing in the double exhibition race against the Canadian senior doubles and a US double. That race went ok considering I had one row with my doubles partner prior to the race. We ended up finishing about six seconds behind the B double.

row2k - What are your Plans/Goals moving forward?
Patricia Obee - I am racing at the Canadian selection regatta in September and if I do well there I will get carded as a funded national team athlete. If that happens I may move to the training center to try to make the senior team double for 2011.