Rendered alternate in 2012 due to injury, rower will at last live Olympics
By Victoria Klassen
Cristy Nurse
Rowing
Age: 29
Local Club: Ottawa Rowing Club
Olympics: Second
SCHEDULE
Mon. Aug. 8
Women’s eight heats
7:30 a.m. ET
Wed. Aug. 10
Repechage
7:30 a.m. ET
Sat. Aug. 13
Final
8:30 a.m. ET
The long wait is almost over for Cristy Nurse to race at the Olympic Games.
The Ottawa Rowing Club athlete had been selected to compete in the London 2012 Olympics, but a back injury forced her to the sidelines two weeks before the Games.
She watched on as her Canadian women’s eight crewmates won the silver medal.
Four years later, Nurse is one of just three rowers (plus the coxswain) who’s stuck around for another shot at the Olympics.
“By the time of the London Games, I’d only been on the national team for two years,” notes the 29-year-old. “Despite the disappointment of the injury, I thought that there was probably still a lot more speed there – I certainly didn’t think that I’d sort of peaked.
“So I think it was that curiosity to see how fast I could be that sort of brought me back into this sport.”
Nurse says she owes a lot to the Rowing Canada medical team for keeping her on the water, and for helping her to correct the issues that caused her back injury.
She now feels “healthy and confident going into this Games” and is excited to be attending as a competitor instead of a spectator.
From farmer, to basketball player, to lawyer, to Olympic rower
Nurse grew up on a dairy farm in Georgetown, Ont. She was involved in many sports growing up, but rowing was not one of them.
It wasn’t until after a year of varsity basketball at the University of Guelph that she tried out rowing and fell in love with the sport.
Nurse came to the capital to work on a graduate law degree at the University of Ottawa, continuing to row for the Gee-Gees and the Ottawa Rowing Club while working on Parliament Hill in an MP’s office.
After demonstrating her potential at several national team camps, Nurse moved full-time to the Canadian women’s team’s home base in London, Ont.
She’s now a veteran leader for the women’s eight team that she believes is ready for the Olympics even though they will all be rookies at the five-ring circus.
“It’s certainly a younger team than we sent to London, and perhaps less experienced in terms of multiple Olympians, but physically it’s probably the most athletic and strongest boat that Canada’s ever put together,” signals Rowing Canada’s 2015 senior athlete of the year. “There’s just a lot of girls with terrific athleticism and size and power, and I think that’s a big cause for excitement, because there’s a lot of potential there if we can put our best race together.”
Canada’s women’s eight experienced “mixed results” at springtime World Cups – claiming silver at the first event in Italy and then placing 4th in Switzerland in a race where the Russian and Canadian boats – assigned the outside lanes in rainy conditions – finished well back of the medallists from USA, Great Britain and New Zealand.
“We’ve made some line up changes and we’re pretty confident in the changes we’ve made to our training,” Nurse adds. “I think there’s some optimism going into Rio that we’re going to have a good performance.”
Canadian rowing certainly has a history of coming up big at the biggest events.
In Nurse’s five World Championships appearances with the women’s eight, she’s won five medals – silver in 2010, 2011 and 2014, and bronze in 2013 and 2015.
Now she’s after one more piece of hardware for her collection before an anticipated retirement from rowing after the Olympics.
“We definitely want to be on that podium,” Nurse says. “I think we have all the tools to get there.”
Advice to young aspiring Olympians:
“I think you need to be willing to fail. It’s not about what happens if you do fail, it’s what happens if you get back up and try again. The other advice I would give is to be willing to push yourself beyond what you think you’re capable of. People have amazing reservoirs of strength and ability. You just have to tap into it and see what’s there.”