Former Michigan Rower is Headed to the London Olympics
He just won the US Olympic Trials in the pair.
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/former-michigan-rower-tom-peszek-earns-olympic-bid/
He's a heck of a guy that I rowed with both during and after our college days. He stuck it out, and worked hard, and this is what came of it! Go blue!
to Tom. Rowing is the ultimate team sport. You do not qualify for the Olympics by accident in the pair.
Go Blue!
I have so much respect for rowers, who in my opinion are up there with cyclists (the clean ones) as the hardest grinders in athletics. The training is absolutely brutal, and the races are just as bad. I swam and rowed in high school, and both training for swimming and rowing were probably on par as far as general suck, but swimming races never hurt near as much as our rowing races. I swam the 500 (or 400 LC) and that race was the closest to the time we raced the 1500m (what we rowed in HS). I was not a quivering wreck after the 500 like I was after the rowing race - we often had to row back down the course to find our testicles, we would joke.
Also, I have never been more nervous than at the start of a rowing race, because you know it's going to be super-painful, and there's a chance that someone chokes and you have to do a restart.
The ergometer is a tool of Satan.
Congratulations to all the Michigan rowers going to London!
to the company that made the rowing ergometer as Concept 666...
Nothing like "fear of the crab" in a big race. (For non-rowers a crab is when your oar blade gets stuck in the water and you can't pull it back out easily due to the momentum of the water flowing past. If one of the rowers in the boat crabs during the race, it's all over as far as your chance of finishing any where close to the front) And yes, erg training is awful. It's a great workout though.
Congratulations to Tom - way to represent the University.
He served as an assistant coach to the novice team a few years ago, very hardworking and this is a great accomplishment. Best of luck to him.
I actually was fortunate enough to row with both Tom, and his pair partner, Silas, at different times in my career.
They're both great guys, and deserve everything they get. Best of luck to them this summer - I'll be rooting hard.
Go Blue, Go Card, Go U.S.
I wish him the best of luck! Will be watching him with the rest of us UM student-expats here in Shanghai. Hopefully the time zone details won't have us watching at some obscene hour of the AM. (but we'll be watching the Olympics regardless)
Pretty awesome. Dude takes up sport in college, trains his ass off and makes the goddamned olympics. Beast mode.