19 June 2023

By William O’Chee

Greatness is rarely the product of comfort, whereas adversity can spur some to glory. Of few could this be more true than the Princeton Women’s Lightweights, who collected their third IRA National Championship this year, and claimed the Eastern Sprints title along the way.

A simple recitation of their successes, however, hides the courage of a squad which had to overcome COVID-19 lockdowns which wiped out the 2020 IRA National Championship, and cast doubt over the following season as well.

Their 2023 lightweight varsity crew contained three seniors who trained through every obstacle, and in the process developed a closeness that many would envy. That close bond was put to the test this week at Henley Women’s Regatta. Hot from their win at the IRA National Championship a fortnight before, they traveled to Henley, where they were drawn against Leander A in the first round of the Championship Women’s Eight.

It was a bruising, toughly fought race. Although Leander got out to a lead after the start, Princeton clung to them like terriers past the spectator enclosure, where the margin was less than a length. In the end, weight and power saw Leander edge away to win by two lengths. For the Princeton girls, it was a loss, but no defeat. In fact, they returned to the pontoon as excited as if they had won.

Interviewing some of the crew revealed the reasons why, and they related largely to the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. Coach Paul Rassam still stings at the frustration of it.

“We knew we were the fastest team in 2019. We’d won the Head of the Charles pretty handily. We had finally turned the corner on Stanford, and knew we were the fastest team going into the Spring, and then Spring was taken away. It was pretty devastating because we had been working towards that for a long time,” Rassam said. “We’d been bronze, then silver, and then another silver, and we knew we were catching up to Stanford and we beat them at the Head of the Charles. That was our year, that was the year it was going to happen. It was devastating.”

Bow Sarah Polson gave the perspective of the affected rowers.

“I think we had a really amazing momentum going on our team before COVID, and so I was really, really proud to be part of the team,” Polson said. “It was very difficult for everyone. In the Fall, no-one was invited back to the university, but in the Spring [of 2021] people were invited back, but we could only row in small boats. We were in singles for most of the season, and we only got in an eight at the end of April.”

Until that point, endless ergometers were the only training that could be achieved.

“We were just on ergs alone. We’d FaceTime and erg together when we got bored. It was quite the experience. We also weren’t allowed to erg inside, so during the Winter we urged outside while it was snowing blizzards. Our coaches would shovel for us little rectangles to put the ergs outside, and then we would all erg six feet apart in the snow,” Polson explained.

Many would have given up. Indeed, many rowers around the world did just that. However, Rassam kept his precious squad together.

“When we were told, okay school was going to resume the following Spring, it was a real simple motto: if they allow us to race, whenever they allow us to race, we are going to be ready to race. We are going to train as hard as we trained at any other point in history in this programme. And the athletes bought into it,” Rassam said. “You know, there’s talent and there’s toughness, and this boat really has both.”

Along the way, the crew learned some lessons about life off the water as well as on it. For cox Margaret Murphy, the work ethic was everything.

“It’s a lot of hard work. Every day we have hard practices. We usually race our open weight team, and those are always really hard practices against them, fighting to be proud of our lightweight programme. It’s been so challenging and rewarding to be on this team, and I’m always going to be grateful for my time on the team,” Murphy said beamingly.

Daisy DeVore, who rowed at 6, also learned a lot about herself.

“Learning to trust yourself is something we talk about a lot on this team; just knowing when you start a piece you go out as hard as you can and just know with every stroke you take you have to trust your ability to make it down the course. You have to completely give everything you have, but you can’t do that without trusting yourself. I think that changed me as a person,” DeVore explained. “This programme teaches you how to become an even better version of yourself.”

All of this brought them to Henley Women’s Regatta where they suffered their only loss of the season at the hands of the Leander women’s eight. It was also their last row in Princeton colours. There were tears. As Murphy told me:

“Crossing the line, I realised it was my last race and I started crying.”

Out of the boat she was swept up in the arms of some of her crew who hugged her until the tears stopped.

Rassam is full of praise for what is clearly a much-loved, and remarkable crew.

“They call us lightweights, but look at their speed, look at their courage. They’re just a damn fast crew, a damn fast crew,’ Rassam said with tears in his eyes.