Grace and pair partner Kerri Gowler were world champions in the pair 2017, and double world champions in the pair and eight in 2019. Both will be doubling up in the pair and eight in Tokyo.
1. What inspired you to go to your first rowing practice; was there anything memorable about it?
I had never really considered rowing as an option but a couple of good friends who rowed gave me the initial push to give it a go. Once they convinced me to go along and try it out I was pretty willing to sign up for a season because I saw it as a way to keep fit over the summer in between the netball season and also getting to go down to Twizel every other weekend to race on Lake Ruataniwha seemed fun.
My main memory from my first time out in a rowing boat was how hard it was to get the boat in and out of the water. It was a chunky old boat that had no gunnels to hold on to and with eight novices we didn't do it all that gracefully. It made me a bit concerned that if I stuck with this sport I'd have to go through that every day, but thankfully it got a bit easier...
2. Was there a practice, race or other event when you fell in love with the sport, or when you knew you might not be too bad at rowing? When you thought you could make the national team?
My early turning point probably would have been winning Gold in the under 17 quad at Maadi Cup. Maadi is a massive deal here in New Zealand and winning a Maadi gold is still one of my happiest rowing memories. This was the only time in my school rowing career where I won an event at Maadi (and it was probably where my sculling career peaked too...) and it flowed on to getting a trial for the NZ Junior team. I didn't end up making the team that year but that was when I first thought that rowing for NZ was a possibility for me and helped me to make the Junior team the following year.
3. Best race/practice, worst race/practice?
It's hard to pick but one race that stands out in my mind is the final of the women's four at World Champs in 2014. This was my first A final at elites and ended up being my first gold medal at an elite world champs too. It was decided pretty late in the season that after racing the pair at under 23 world champs we would combine with the elite reserves and race a four. We had no expectations and raced the final in Amsterdam's signature tail wind and it was just one of those races that seemed to fly by and before you knew it you were at the finish line.
A lot of trainings stand out for being pretty hard for different reasons but we used to do 'mystery' sessions on Thursday mornings where we would turn up to training not knowing what we were doing. One day it ended up being a row to the furthest dam that we can get to on Lake Karapiro which is about a 50km round trip.
The closer we got to the dam the more current there was to battle so we crawled to the turnaround at about a 3-minute split. The row also took so long that by the time we were on our way home the water had got so rough that we ended the row pretty close to sinking but managed to bail out a couple of times and make it home.
4. Best/Anything you've done in the sport (or outside the sport) no one knows about?
Something people might not know about me is that I have scoliosis. I've been fortunate that it hasn't hindered my ability to row although has caused me to end up with a slightly unique rowing style to watch and sitting behind me in the boat probably takes a bit of getting used to! It also means that you'll never catch me rowing stroke sideā¦
5. Any/Most important advice for young rowers?
When things are going well it's easy to just to go with it, but it's important to try and nail down why. It's often hard to articulate what makes you fast or what is happening when things are going well but try and figure these things out because it is good to have these key points to fall back on when suddenly things aren't going so well anymore.
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