It was a cold, windy day at the rowing nationals as Rosie O’Brien and Hayley Murray launched their boat on the Olympic Basin in Montreal for the doubles two-kilometre race. The duo would go on to win bronze, breaking a 25-year medal drought at nationals for the Carleton women’s rowing team.
“It’s very humbling and very surreal,” said O’Brien, who has won six medals this season — including a second bronze in the lightweight singles race at nationals and a gold at provincials.
While O’Brien often races in a singles boat, she prefers to “suffer” with someone else. This year, that person was Murray.
“She is genuinely the best rower I have ever rowed with,” O’Brien said.
Nationals was only the third time the two athletes had competed together. They attribute their success to a tight-knit, supportive rowing community. Along with the national wins, O’Brien also claimed OUA’s female rower of the year and female athlete of the year titles this season.
When she rowed in a four boat at the prestigious Head of the Charles in Boston back in October this year — and won — the rest of the team cheered them on in Ottawa.
The women’s rowing team has 15 athletes who gather nearly every morning at 5 a.m. on the Rideau River in downtown Ottawa. Under the guidance of volunteer women’s head coach Bob Mallard and volunteer head coach Ed Fournier, they spent the eight-week season perfecting their technique, speed and endurance on the water.
“There’s a saying that the average rower sees the number of sunrises in a month that some see in their entire life,” O’Brien said.
“It’s a huge commitment,” said Mallard, who learned to row at Oxford University and returned to coach the sport this year after being a speed skating coach.
Murray also comes from a speed-skating background. She retired from the sport in 2019 after competing at the Canada Winter Games. In her first year at Carleton, she stumbled across the rowing booth at the Carleton club fair — and that encounter set her on a new path.
One of the rowers looked at her and said, “You look tall, have you considered rowing?” she recalled.
Now in her fifth and final year of biomedical and mechanical engineering at Carleton, the sport has served as an outlet for her. Murray said this year of rowing has been her favourite because she was able to mentor others on the team.
Murray added she appreciates the experience O’Brien brought: “It’s so easy to trust her.”
And at nationals, that experience was on full display. In the 60 minutes before her solo race on Nov. 2, O’Brien was in tunnel-vision mode.
“I was a little bit stressed going into this regatta,” she said. She used visualization techniques to calm down.
“The fourth-place rower was right there,” Mallard recalled.
“There’s a subtlety in timing and the application of power and rhythm in the strokes, so that you don’t disrupt the flow of the boat,” Mallard said. She is able to stay efficient with “a competitor breathing down her neck.”
Going forward, the dynamic duo of O’Brien and Murray hope their success at nationals boosts the sport’s visibility at Carleton.
“We’ve had a long history of good results,” O’Brien said. “It means a lot to me just to see the university recognize the sport a little bit more.”
Featured image by Sarah-Maude Comtois
