by Lexey Burns, Editor-in-Chief

Abbey Maillet, a second-year Sports Education and Concurrent Education student, has qualified for the 2021 World Rowing Indoor Championships after winning gold at the Canadian Indoor Rowing competition earlier this month.

“It was really great to race for Laurentian again and to test my ability. It’s been a year since I’ve last competed so it was definitely a great experience,” she said. 

Maillet said the competition is normally held in Mississauga but due to the pandemic, it was held virtually this year.

Maillet, who has been rowing for six years, began her journey with her high school’s rowing team in Hamilton. 

“Rowing is normally a sport that you start later on in life, but I started at a young age and I rowed throughout high school,” she said.

“In grade twelve I decided that rowing is what I wanted to focus on, so now I just strictly row.” 

Maillet was scouted for Laurentian’s rowing team to continue competing after high school. The varsity team is coached by Amanda Schweinbenz, a professor at Laurentian.

Since the pandemic, Maillet has been training with Schweinbenz at the Ontario Next Gen Performance Center in Welland alongside other athletes, which provides a much-needed form of motivation. 

She said training during a pandemic isn’t too different from training during the winter as they just use rowing machines, but she says that motivation is scarce and “mentally it can be draining.” 

“Because of the lockdown I ended up going home and I am training at home in my basement except from the end of August to just before Christmas I was training with people at the Ontario Next Gen Performance Center.”

 “A lot of the competitors that I was up against were in the same boat,” she said, as several had not competed in almost a year. 

“Everyone had to do it from their house so that was very different because normally we’ll all be in the same place lined up against each other. Instead, you were stuck in your basement staring at a screen.” 

The 2021 World Rowing Indoor Championships takes place between February 23rd and 27th.