Canadian Olympic champion rowers go inside seeking success on world stage
CBC
Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski had a steel plate and 10 screws removed from her right collarbone two months ago, the final reminder of her road bike accident in 2021, six weeks before the Tokyo Olympics where she was to compete with Canada's women's eight rowing crew.
"[The plate] didn't affect my rowing but did when weight-lifting or sleeping," Gruchalla-Wesierski said. "Quality of life stuff I wasn't willing to compromise if I was going to continue training to compete [at the 2024 Olympics] in Paris."
Gruchalla-Wesierski also bruised her hip in the crash and needed 56 stitches to close lacerations all over her body. Lying in a hospital bed, she had flashbacks of breaking her leg 15 years ago in a career-ending ski racing accident.
"I was like, 'Not again, not this time,'" the 31-year-old told CBC Sports while preparing for her world rowing indoor championships debut this weekend in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, Ont. "I'm so close to my Olympic dream. Within 10 minutes, I was trying to find a way to make it happen."
Gruchalla-Wesierski had collarbone surgery three days after the crash and two weeks later was on an Ergometer, a machine used to simulate rowing without an actual boat. She was on water in Japan three weeks after an orthopedic surgeon told the Calgary native her season was over.
"Truthfully, I don't know if I would have made it through that injury without going through several injuries prior," said Gruchalla-Wesierski. "I'm quite stubborn and this is one of the times it paid off for me.
"Luckily, I had a team of doctors, physiotherapists and others who were looking for an alternative solution and that's when surgery came into the picture. It was the only way to make it [to the Olympics]."
The Montreal-born athlete and her teammates went on to capture an Olympic gold medal, the first by a Canadian women's boat in 29 years.
Fellow Olympic champion Sydney Payne, who was biking ahead of Gruchalla-Wesierski when the latter crashed midway through a two-hour training session — "I thought she was dead" — marvelled at her teammate's mental strength to train solo and get into shape to face the world's best in Tokyo.
"She convinced us she was fit, and her shoulder or collarbone was going to hold up," Payne said. "It was astonishing, powerful and motivational."
Nineteen months later, Gruchalla-Wesierski and Payne, who was born and raised in Toronto, will share the arena floor at Paramount Fine Foods Centre on Sunday at 2:53 p.m. ET. They will compete against each other in the women's 2,000-metre hybrid race for those aged 23-39.
The morning sessions on Saturday and Sunday will be available exclusively on CBC Sports' YouTube channel. Live streaming coverage of the afternoon sessions will be shown Saturday at 1 p.m. ET and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.
Rowers will see their position during the race on an Ergometer monitor and have a live race tracker on a laptop or external device.
Hosted by Canada for the first time, this year's world indoor championships will be a hybrid event, with most of the more than 1,600 athletes from more than 70 countries — including two-time Canadian Olympians Mike Forgeron and Phil Monckton — participating in-person in the 500, 2,000, 2,000 relay and Para races while others do so virtually across the world. The competition was virtual each of the previous two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
