Former Portora Boat Club rower Holly Nixon will compete at the World Rowing Championships in Great Sarasota-Bradenton in Florida next week as she looks to add to the gold medal she won in Rotterdam last year. 
Holly is part of the Great Britain women’s quadruple scull (W4x) and it is the same team that won bronze at the European Championships in May, namely Holly, Jess Leyden, Beth Bryan and Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne.
For Holly though it is all about one target at a time and the goal for now is simply to make it through to the A Final and take it from there.
“Every athlete will always say the aim is to win but we have made the decision to take the regatta one step at a time. 
“Our first goal and main aim is to get us into the top 6 (A final) as we haven’t had a women’s quad in one since 2012 and let’s face it you have to be in the race where there are medals up for grabs before you can begin to think about winning one. 
“Then when we are there we will think about the process in our boat and if that’s a gold medal winning process then it will be fantastic. I am a big believer in only thinking about winning in the last 500 metres,” she stated.
The Quad’s preparations for the Championships have been hampered by injury and illness but Holly believes that has only made them stronger.
“Our preparation has been a bit of a roller coaster as we have had a lot of injury and illness but we have learnt a lot from each difficult situation that has arisen and I think we have become stronger due to taking more responsibility for ourselves and our seats.
“Having people change seats on a regular basis has made our rhythm stronger as we had to make it as simple and robust as possible so that anyone could follow it,” she explained.
And she believes that despite the setbacks, the Quad have been making good progress.
“Like I said unfortunately we’ve had a few more bumps than we’d like along the way but when we have had a good block of training and raced together in this combination we’ve done well and that’s what is giving me confidence,” added Holly.
Holly will be hoping that her GB Quad will be in contention in Florida while she also expects the Dutch and Polish to be strong challengers for honours.
“Both of these crews have athletes who raced in Rio and won medals so they have a lot of experience in their boats. They have been consistently on the podium this season,” she said.