Classifications & Expectations

• If someone is tall does that mean he or she will be good at basketball?

• If someone is a female rower in high school does that give her the right to a college scholarship?

•  If someone has a disability does that give him or her the right to go to the Paralympics?

Has the answer to these questions changed somewhat over time? As of 2014, I think the answer to all of these is “No,” but perhaps even 10 years ago some of these might have been answered with a "Maybe."

There are some key factors that apply across the board for AB (able-body) and adaptive sports to help athletes get to the next or highest level.

1. Someone’s inherent or genetic physicality can be a huge advantage. The body you start with is an important factor. You can probably imagine a stereotypical body type for these sports: Gymnasts, Swimmers, Rowers, Softball, Track. What you just pictured are probably pretty different for each one. Physical ability means current baseline physicality: your body as it currently functions including your heart, lungs, brain, muscles, limbs…etc. Some of these are permanent based on your genes, or your injury. Others may be able to be developed additionally through training efforts.
2. Age. Someone who is in their 20s probably has an advantage over someone in their 50s. People peak at different times and rowers many times can peak even into their 30s. 
3. Training is then a huge factor. An athlete who trains six times a week probably has an advantage over someone who trains twice a week. Are you doing sport-specific training? Cardio only? Weight training? Do you have a training plan that makes sense for maximal development? Some phrases used by great coaches that show this include: “What do you think our competitors are doing today?” “We are going to out-train our competitors,” “A day off, is a day given to our competitors,” and “If you want to win, you have to do more than the people you will meet on the line on race day” 
4. Biomechanics and rigging mechanics matter. An athlete who races a Fixed Seat with oars or riggers set for an LTA athlete is at a disadvantage. Every athlete is different in terms of arm length, body height, weight, reach, strapping requirements…etc. These are individual factors that must be taken into consideration. Getting a seat, oars and riggers that are functional for power application is key. This might not matter as much at the recreational level, but when you get up in the high performance group, this could make or break you.
5. There is the psychology of sport. An athlete who has the mental ability to push him/herself into handling a higher level of lactic acid build up and pain has an advantage. An athlete who can remain calm and think clearly while pushing him/herself through immense pain has an advantage. An athlete who is able to stay in the flow of her sport, and not burn out through training has an advantage. 
6. Strategy is another factor that can give someone an advantage over his or her competitors. Applying skill and physicality to be most efficient at producing results. What is the race plan, what is the play or move that will help you win the race or game?
7.  Who are your teammates? Iron sharpens iron. If you’re the big fish in a small pond, there is a limit to how much better you will get, even if it’s a lot of fun. Having strong, supportive teammates is a huge advantage and can help push you to a higher level. This also applies to gaining experience racing, and not just racing – but racing fast people who challenge you.
8. Experience is important. Time to learn oarsmanship, boat feel, steering. There are two Para-Rowing athletes in the AS category who both were rowers prior to their injuries. I think that is telling. 
9. Finally, one person might have a master coach where someone else has a sub-par coach. This many times means people who are serious about their sport move. They move to find a leader who can help shape them as athletes, challenge them, or maybe unite a team. Also, a good leader will help maximize all the other advantages in this list – that is worth finding. 

I am 6ft tall and I’m asked constantly if I play basketball or volleyball. The answer is that I played these a bit in middle school. I was also pretty terrible at them. I never once considered myself an athlete growing up despite the fact that I went to a sports camp every summer and was always on some kind of sports team. I was awful at pretty much everything. I still did it though – because it was fun to be active.

Then my freshman year of high school I started rowing. My sister got me into it because she was on the team that year as a senior. I found I liked it a lot and I was pretty good at it immediately – and that is always fun. Especially fun, when you’ve never been immediately good at any sport in your entire life.

I continued to row off and on through high school. My team with the Austin Rowing Club typically had 10 kids on it (half girls, half boys). The sport was pretty new and very few people knew about it or did it. I never had a conversation with anyone about rowing in college on scholarship because I didn’t think that was possible (because I wasn’t a “real” athlete) and because I didn’t even think that existed.

I went to college in Georgia my first year and ended up rowing there after swearing to myself I wouldn’t so I could focus on my studies. Then I started looking to transfer to the University of Texas for family reasons. I emailed the coach asking what the dues were, and when practices were – assuming it was still a club sport as when I left high school it was still a club program. Lo and behold I get an email back from CARIE GRAVES! The email asked for all my specs (height, weight, 2k…etc). So I sent them in not really knowing where I stood in the scheme of things having always been a big fish in a small pond on my rowing teams. Bam – I end up on scholarship at Texas. It took a full year rowing for Carie before I actually started referring to myself as an athlete. This was me benefiting from the women's rowing movement. 

The question above about high school female rowers expecting scholarships – for me that kind of worked. But that was 15 years ago! Times are changing. The stats still show that rowing is a great sport to make a run for a college scholarship, but every year it is getting harder and harder. I constantly dealt with this discussion working with an inner city program in Pittsburgh. Parents thought that their kids were definitely going to get scholarships just because they were involved and I had to manage their expectations and explain that their kids had to actually train hard to do that, and that for some of them, it would be a lot of extra work to have a shot at that opportunity. 

Rowing, unlike the sport of basketball, is a sport you don’t have to start when you’re 5 years old to be good at in college. As a matter of fact, you kind of can’t start that young because of the size of the equipment not being great for little bodies (although there are ways around this if you want to try it). Someone can start in high school and possibly get good enough at rowing to get a scholarship, but that doesn’t mean everyone will. If you are tall – yes, you have an advantage, but your height isn’t enough. You have to have the scores. If you are short, it doesn’t mean you are out of luck, but it means you have to work hard and hopefully you have a good set of lungs and a good heart to help you. Hopefully, all those other factors mentioned above are in your favor. 

Rowing was in the Olympics for the first time in 1900 for men (technically 1896 although it was cancelled that debut year due to weather) and 1976 for women, and in the Paralympics for the first time in 2008. We are a pretty young sport still, and therefore are still developing. Para-rowing is 32 years behind the women’s rowing movement if that helps put it in perspective and 108 years behind the men’s rowing movement.

Every Olympics and Paralympics we see people beating the previous Olympic or Paralympic Records. Sports are getting more competitive. What was standard last year, is not standard for this year. The newer a sport is, the “easier” it is to be awesome at it simply because there are fewer people doing it. Everything progresses. 

The way sports like rowing get faster and faster is by having an increase in the foundation/base level of participants. The more people participating, the more competition in the sport that drives it to a higher level. Junior rowing is taking off. My old Austin Rowing Club Junior team has over 100 kids now. That is ten times more than when I was in it. Every year the 2k standard for women to be looked at by D1 colleges seems to drop 5-10 seconds. I got a scholarship with a 2k just under 8-minutes. Now girls need to be under 7:30 to even start being noticed. Who knows if with the coaching, training schedule…etc that high school kids are getting now if I would’ve gotten a scholarship these days – I don’t know. Point is that if all the kids who would be unlikely candidates to get scholarships, or go to the Olympics immediately quit - we just plain wouldn't have a sport. 

The disability community has smaller numbers than the AB community, so a higher percentage of people end up at the highest level of sports. I think this is what initially created the mentality some people have of thinking they can get to the Paralympics fairly easily. As more people with disabilities sign up to participate and compete – the harder it gets to make it there. This is a good thing! Sport participation hopefully isn’t ONLY about going to the Olympics or Paralympics. It is exciting to see how far you can take a sport. By all means, people should look to these international competitions to help drive them. Make a run for it and see what happens. And sure, try all the sports you can to see where you are more naturally successful. 

If you make a run, just know that someone might end up being faster than you despite all of your time and effort. Many times the thing that it comes down to is out of your control. You can control your training schedule, what team you train with, who your coach is, how you take care of your body and to a certain extent your strategy and psychological approach the sport. There is immense honor in making a valiant effort to compete. That is hard work no matter what body you have. However, the one thing you can’t control is your inherent ability, the stuff that will never change. And sometimes, not always, this is what holds people back. Can a 5’4” woman train hard enough, and build up enough fitness and strength to beat a 6’2” rowing goddess like Susan Francia? That might be pushing it. It shouldn’t stop her from trying, but just know that at some point it’s not about how much you’ve trained or how much you “want” it. It’s about how fast you are on a given day against everyone else making a run for those seats.

Now let’s look at Para-Rowing categories.

The LTA category (Legs/Trunk/Arms) is the category with the highest level of functional ability in the sport of Para-Rowing. Athletes use a sliding seat, and minimal other adaptations, if any. With equal fitness, training…etc who do you think would more easily win, someone with…

• Muscular Dystrophy
• Spina Bifida
• Cerebral Palsy
• Single leg amputee
• Single arm amputee
• Club foot or fixed ankle
• Visually Impaired

The TA category (Trunk/Arms) is a category for athletes who use a fixed seat and are able to lean forward to use their hips and are able to have a strap that goes across their thigh(s) above their knee(s).  With equal fitness, training…etc who do you think would more easily win, someone with…

• Double leg amputee (at or below knee)
• Cerebral Palsy
• Spina Bifida
• Fixed knee(s)

The AS category (Arms/Shoulders) is a category for athletes who use a fixed seat and are unable to support themselves leaning forward without strap around their chest. With equal fitness, training…etc who do you think would more easily win, someone with…

• Cerebral Palsy
• Spina Bifida
• Double leg amputee (above knee)
• Spinal Cord Injury (Paraplegia)
• Spinal Cord Injury (Quadriplegia)

As the sport gets more competitive, the people making it to the highest level have disabilities that leave them with more inherent ability while still classifying for the sport. Similar to the taller the athlete - the more likely to make it to the higher levels. *NOTE: More likely, not guaranteed

Classification is a huge deal, and because Para-Rowing is so new it’s a hot topic. And it’s possible that the classification procedure may change one day after further examination. If that is to happen, that day would not be before 2020 at least though, so we have to function within the given system. However, just because the functional ability at the highest level might be out of some athlete’s reach, doesn’t mean you can’t compete. 

Look at masters rowing – athletes of all shapes, sizes and ages compete at all levels, get medals and have fun! Participate because it’s fun, because you love your teammates, because racing gives others someone to race against and improve, because you love learning more, because you like being fit and healthy, because you can give back to the sport, help mentor an up and coming athlete, or do more for the sport in another role. It’s not just Olympians or Paralympians who can have an impact! I would’ve loved to go to the Olympics, but I didn’t. I am still allowed to be happy with my performance in the sport even though other people beat me, right? I still love rowing after almost 20 years and plan to do it until I can’t sit in a boat anymore. I can still impact the sport even though I didn’t go to the Olympics or Worlds, right? Hopefully, our sport isn’t quite that shallow. Join me in being awesome in the sport even if you don’t make it to the highest level! There are plenty of other things this sport can offer you, and you can offer the sport.