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Journey to the top: A Mustang’s Olympic hope

As Sarah Black answers the phone with a warmhearted “Hello?” a sense of subtle exhaustion lingers over her breath. It’s a Monday night, and while most students are easing into their workload for the week, Sarah has already rowed 30 kilometers, completed a weights workout and attended whatever classes she had scheduled for the day.

Although she sounds tired, it isn’t the sound of someone who is worn out—it is the sound of someone who has had a fulfilling day, and is finally finding a few moments of downtime during all of the excitement. She is on Western’s women’s rowing team, but she has not had any time to train with them this fall. Instead she’s been training with her fellow Olympic candidates on the national team, in hopes to make it to London, England in 2012.

Sarah, who is currently enrolled in her fifth year at Western, began rowing back in 2005.

“I started rowing back in ninth grade when my school offered a ‘learn to row’ program,” she said. “It was kind of on a whim that I tried it with one of my best friends. I just fell in love with it and continued to pursue it after that—something about it just spoke to me.”

Sarah is a sweeper, which means she rows with only one blade—not one in each hand.

“There’s not one [type of] boat that I row,” she explains. “This summer I won the Under-23 World Championships in the eight [person], but this fall I won [the Ontario University Athletics Championships] in the four and eight, and won Canadian University’s in the pair and eight. As long as it is a sweep boat, I’m eligible to race in it.”

The fact that she was a natural when she stepped in the boat for the first time could be a fluke, but it probably has something to do with her six foot five stature. Al Morrow, the senior national women’s coach for Rowing Canada, first met Sarah while she was still in high school, and knew her physical attributes could take her far in this sport.

“The first thing that’s outstanding about her is her physical build—she has some natural attributes of a rower, one being her height, as she’s quite tall,” he said. “You need a certain amount of length, and more is better, to do well in rowing. That was an indication that she was a good talent for the future.”

When the two first met, Sarah was already being recruited to some of the better colleges south of the border. Even though she could have experienced life outside of Canada, she chose to attend Western because of the successful rowing team.

“There are two national training centers in Canada—one in Victoria, that’s the men’s centre, and one in London, the women’s centre,” Morrow explains. “I think in the back of her mind she probably thought, ‘if I’m in London, I’m in close proximity to where the national team is based.’ I think it was also a good fit for her academically and socially.”

Even though she is currently only enrolled as a part-time student with three courses, academics are another important part of Sarah’s life.

As she talks about the other things she enjoys besides rowing, you can hear the passion in her voice—if there were more than 24 hours in the day, she would likely tackle it all.

So how does a student training for the Olympics balance everything?

“If a scheduling conflict comes up, school is unfortunately the first thing to bend before my training,” Sarah admits. “But I’m taking an online course, which is very easy to work around, and an evening course, which doesn’t conflict with anything. I have one course in the afternoon, which makes me miss a row, but I just catch up on cross training at the gym after class so I’m not behind.”

Sheila and Norm Black, her parents who currently live in Ottawa, are amazed at how well their daughter has learned to cope with such a busy schedule.

“I don’t think we were ever worried about it, we were just certainly amazed that right from the start her involvement with rowing forced her to balance things. She just developed that skill on her own,” Norm says.

“She’s a master at time management, and her priorities are very clear. We’re in awe of that,” Sheila adds.

As parents of an athlete with Olympic potential, they are as calm and composed as they can be, but you can hear it in their voices how proud they are. Even though they live seven hours away from London, they travel to support Sarah whenever she is racing—it’s their joy and relaxation.

“We’re just amazed with how hard she’s worked and how diligent she’s been at rowing, and so fortunate she’s enjoyed every minute of it,” Norm explains. “You know, whenever she goes down to practice or gets in a boat or anything like that, she says, ‘there’s no feeling like it’—she just loves it. It’s been so easy for us over all these years because when she had to get up at quarter to five in the morning to go down to practice, she was the one that would get us up to drive her down because she just loves it so much.”

Although Sarah is in the Candidates Camp, which is the final group of 14 competing for a spot in the 2012 Olympics, the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro is her main goal. After a winter of training indoors and three trips down south to row, she will find out in May if she has made the final cut.

“I am nervous—I’m terrified and overwhelmed at the same time too,” she confesses. “I’m just excited for this winter of training because I know regardless of what happens in April, I’ll be in good shape for any future racing I plan to do.”

As coach of the national team, what would Morrow like to say to Sarah?

“Stay the course. She has to stay the course and work steadily and hard, and work through all of the ups and downs,” he says. “She has to be really patient, and look at things in the long term. She’s very goal-driven, quiet, dependable and hardworking—psychologically she’s in a great position to do this. She could set herself up for a great four year period, if she wants to do it.”

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