SARATOGA, N.Y. (NEWS10) — The opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics is just a month away, and if you’re looking to cheer on a local team, the U.S. women’s rowing team is the one to do it.
Christy Wagner and Lauren O’Connor are both members of the Arion Rowing Team, which trains at the Saratoga Regatta. They have both qualified to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics as part of the U.S. team.
Wagner, who will compete in the double sculls, will be competing in her second Olympic Games. “When it comes to rowing, it’s not that different,” Wagner said. “I do World Cups, I do World Championships and a few other races and it’s all pretty similar.”
Wagner’s first visit to the Olympics was at the 2020 Tokyo Games, which will actually be held in 2021 under COVID-19 precautions. The experience there was very different from what she expects in Paris. “I had to leave within 24 hours of finishing my competition,” Wagner said. “I didn’t get to go to any other competitions, I didn’t get to go to the closing ceremony, I didn’t get to experience any of that. So I’m really looking forward to having a really great race and then being able to celebrate.”
O’Connor will be competing in the quad sculls at her first Olympic Games. “It still feels a little surreal that I’m actually competing,” she said. “It’s been a lot of fun, and everyone tells me to just soak it all up and just experience it.”
Not only will O’Connor and Wagner be in Paris, but a coach will also be there. Eric Catalano founded ARION to work with athletes at the highest level in the sport, and now he’s an assistant for Team USA on the biggest stage. “When I first started, my goal was to help athletes get to this level,” says Catalano. “When I got the opportunity to come and help prepare athletes for this level, it was totally unexpected, but a lot of fun.”
The race will be essentially business as usual. The change is in preparing for the noise that surrounds it. “You want to soak it all up, but not get distracted by all this stuff,” Catalano said. “So you have to be a little more intentional about preparing yourself mentally going into the race.”
Both athletes credit Saratoga Rowing with helping them grow, but the support they’ve received from the Saratoga community at large has also been crucial. “We’re not professional athletes,” Wagner says. “We’re just elite athletes, so we need a lot of support and assistance, and we’ve gotten all of that from Saratoga. It’s really awesome to be able to represent the region.”
While Wagner and O’Connor are gunning for gold, their biggest focus is on what they can control: “We’re going to go all the way to the top and try to win the gold medal,” O’Connor said, “but at the same time, it’s just about racing the best we can, and we can’t control what other people do.”
“Medals are the goal, and right now we’re 100 percent committed to that,” Wagner said. “We want to go as fast as we can. Of course, there are factors we can’t control, like the speed of the other guys, but I think the ideal scenario is that our best beats the other guys’ best.”
