Sport is full of highs and lows and for Enniskillen rower Holly Nixon she tasted that full range of emotions in a short 72 hour spell.

For all elite rowers, competing at the Olympic Games is the dream and years of hard work and commitment goes into making that dream a reality. And Holly is no different so when she was named in the GB Womens Quad crew last Saturday week for this summer’s Olympics there was obvious joy. That selection though lasted only three days as by the Tuesday the Tokyo Olympics were postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus situation before being rescheduled for next summer meaning that the trial process would have to be carried out again.

“It has been a tough few weeks,” said Holly. “We’ve been on two big training camps sine January then we had final Olympic trials followed by Olympic seat racing. As we started the Olympic seat racing the government were making these huge decisions quite quickly so by the Saturday of our seat racing they actually brought us in and announced the pre-selected team for the Olympics which I had been named in. But then 72 hours later we got an email saying that selection no longer stands and with the decision that the Olympics had been moved to 2021 we had to start all over again. That was quite a rollercoaster to say the least. It was quite emotional being named but it proved to be a temporary moment of happiness.”

The decision though was not one that overly surprised Holly who had been following the ever evolving crisis that has shut down much of the world.

“To be honest, it was the inevitable outcome. As much as we were trying to enjoy that moment I think seeing how the world was evolving at the time we were half expecting it and then on the Tuesday the news came,” she said.

“I think it is also really important for us to remember in this period sport isn’t everything, this is actually a world wide crisis concerning the health and welfare of people.

“In a way, we have our bubble and our world and sometimes rowing does seem like everything but one of the things we talked about when we were leaving the team and walking away from the training centre is that it was time to be with our families and to support friends and family during what is a very difficult time for everybody at the minute. Sport comes second at this time.”

It was though particularly tough on the Fermanagh native who had battled illness over the past couple of years to put herself into contention for the Olympics and she was pleased with how the trial process went for her.

“I had been out with a medical condition and I started the process by simply asking myself the basic question of if I could race again. Thankfully I got to the November trials and the December trials and discovered that my body could still tolerate that level of racing.

“After Christmas I found a bit more momentum. The Olympic trials themselves, they were difficult, I had only actually been back on the full training programme for about ten weeks and we had done three races in 24 hours which with my medical condition was quite a big hit for my body. The seat racing process that we did after that to finalise the selection was also very challenging in other ways with wind and race times getting moved but I was happy with it and it was a relief to be named after putting myself through everything that they had chucked at us over the last 12 months. It was nice to get that moment that everything I had done was enough.”

Now Holly and the rest of the squad will have to go through the process again if they are to realise their dreams of racing in Tokyo next summer.

“With a new date having been fixed it will probably make athletes a bit more contented knowing that they have an end goal. They could have cancelled the Olympics and said that the next one is going to be Paris so it is good that it will go ahead,” she said.

However, she knows that another tough 12 months lie ahead if she is to make the plane for Tokyo.

“Going into the next 12 months we start again and there are a lot of young girls who are getting faster and faster. But for me the good thing is that I have got confidence that I can be at that level again which is something that I didn’t know the answer to this time 12 months ago. I think that will help me.

“As I say I have built momentum since January so hopefully I can carry that through and it might even give me a bit more time to be fitter and stronger. Hopefully, fingers crossed, that if everything with my health stays right then it might work in my favour to have another year to work on everything.”

And the hard work continues even though the country is on lockdown. Holly is currently staying with family on England and is training from the house.

“We have got quite creative with our training, we are doing it over video calls and stuff which is quite fun. We get the iPads set up and we will all be on our rowing machines or we will all do a circuit together in the garden and I think for me the more of that I can do the more it will help. It is though tough mentally because we are trying to do an Olympic training programme from our own house,” said Nixon.

 

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