The first regatta Chris Wales ever attended was the 2009 Junior World Championships in Brive-la Gaillarde, France, to watch his big brother Michael race in his first international regatta. Attending the race didn't instigate his rowing career, as he had already decided to try out the sport like his brother, but the regatta showed him everything that could be achieved.
"It was exciting to see all the hype that goes along with a World Championship," Chris said. "I was watching what was attainable at the highest level for juniors then starting my novice season a few weeks later."
Michael and Chris Wales are no strangers to international competition, as the two brothers have made four national teams over the past six years: Chris on the Junior team in 2012 and 2013, Michael on the Junior team in 2009 and U23 in 2011. However, this summer is the first time that the two brothers will both be going to Europe to race for the USA in the same year. Michael will be racing the senior lightweight men's pair with Tyler Nase, and Chris will be in the U23 lightweight men's double with Matthew Maddamma. When summer racing wraps up, the two will be on the same team for the first time in their rowing careers; it's a big year for the Wales brothers.
Michael led the way into rowing for the two, though it wasn't until they were being interviewed for this piece that Chris learned why Michael had started—what had happened that spun these boys from a non-rowing family in Seattle, to a four-season pair of rowers?
"I really wanted to play lacrosse," admitted Michael. "I thought I was going to be the biggest lacrosse star ever. When I started to play in middle school, I realized that might not be the case, and I had a neighborhood friend who had just signed up for rowing. I was looking for a new sport in 8th grade so I gave it a go."
Chris laughed, though he seemed a bit startled as well. Turns out, his brother's inability at lacrosse is why he is training for his third world championship.
"I think I'm a much better rowing than I would ever be a lacrosse player," laughed Michael.
Michael began training under Conal Groom at Mt. Baker Rowing Club when he was a junior in high school after a few years of rowing at another club; he started to train with Groom's high performance athletes, doing two-a-days with men training for the senior team, and invites to the Princeton Training Center. However, it wasn't the older guys that pushed him to turn his eyes toward making a national team.
"As I was starting to learn to row the single, someone who really inspired me was Cara Linnenkohl, who was training for Junior Worlds in the women's single in 2008," he said. "It was when I was first starting to row the single, so we trained together all summer, and I followed her racing as she went over to junior worlds in Beijing. That was the biggest inspiration for me to decide that next year 'I'm going to do that; I want to go to Junior Worlds.'"
With that goal in mind, he continued to train throughout the school year and made his first team the following summer—the 2009 regatta that introduced his brother to rowing.
Although Chris followed in his brother's footsteps, the two never quite rowed together (save a time or two in the double, and they remember "going at each other" during those occasional rows). When Michael was a senior in high school, getting ready to head east to Harvard, Chris was just a novice, and when Chris enrolled at Harvard, his brother was taking time off and training in Oklahoma City. Though they haven't spent much time in the same location since their rowing careers have become serious, their support for one another is integral to their rowing.
"I'm really interested in what Chris is doing on and off the water—what he's thinking about, what his goals are," Michael said. "Especially this year, Chris was pursuing a trials boat and it was a bit hectic sorting things out, so I spent a lot of time talking to him and using my experience to help him figure it out."
"I had gone through the camp system the previous two years so going straight to trials was a new experience for me and I wasn’t quite sure the best way to go about it—finding a partner, picking a boat, and figuring out what was going to be most competitive and most viable," Chris said. "So I went through a number of different ideas that I would bounce off Michael to get his opinion on different partners and boats."
The brothers share a sense of hard work and leadership says Linda Muri, who coached both in the freshmen years at Harvard, and who is currently coaching Chris as U23's. She describes them as similar in their work ethic, yet different in their approach, noting Michael has the "first-born kind of seriousness" as opposed to Chris's "more relaxed approach along the lines of not being the older brother." Hearing them speak with one another, that dynamic was apparent, so was the admiration they have for one another.
"It's really fun watching Chris develop in his career because I like to think, both on and off the water, he's done everything I have done, but he's done it better," Michael said. "He's a better rower technically, and he's a really strong student and really good at all his extracurricular activities. It's been fun watching him take a similar path, but really excel at it."
The two finally agreed that Chris is better at sculling, while Michael is the better sweep rower.
As they prepare for their respective World Championships this summer, they have a built-in support network in one another. And while they are both working hard and training, the one thing they seem to be looking forward to, perhaps above all else, is the opportunity to finally train on the same team this fall as Michael returns to Harvard. Finally, the Wales brothers will be on the same team - though hopefully not competing for the same seat.
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