LOE Olivia

General
PARTNERSHIP
She began rowing with her double sculls partner, Brooke Donoghue, in 2017, and the pair went unbeaten that year, winning the two World Cup regattas they entered, a Henley Royal Regatta title, and gold at the world championships. They went unbeaten at two more World Cup events in 2018 before their streak was broken at the 2018 World Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, where they finished second. The duo bounced back to win gold at the 2019 World Championships in Linz-Ottensheim, Austria. "We had a really hard look at ourselves [after Plovdiv]. We didn't go to world champs last year [2018] to get silver. That's not our goal, that's not our standard. This title [2019] will be great for our confidence [for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo]. We'll look to keep improving towards the Olympics but I believe we're in a good position." She admits to being more outgoing than Donoghue. "[I am] a bit chattier, but it works, and when we're on the water, we're the same. At home, we're probably different people, but the way we execute and handle ourselves on the water, we're very similar. We worked really hard and had high standards and held ourselves accountable to those." (nzherald.co.nz, 17 Aug 2019, 17 Jun 2018; wearecanterbury.co.nz, 01 Sep 2019; newsroom.co.nz, 02 May 2018; worldrowing.com, 01 Sep 2018; newshub.co.nz, 10 Sep 2018)

FROM RESERVE TO WORLD CHAMP
She spent four years rowing for New Zealand at U23 level before spending two years as a reserve for the senior team in 2015 and 2016, including at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. She believes her time spent as a reserve contributed to her rise to world champion in 2017 alongside crewmate Brooke Donoghue. "The second time I was named reserve it was pretty heartbreaking, because it was the Olympic year [2016]. I felt like I deserved to be on the team. I still loved it and, as hard as it was watching a crew that I wanted to be in go out training and be successful - it was fuel as well. The only way you can fight back against people who don't believe in you is to make it blatantly obvious that you are meant to be there and you deserve to be there. As a reserve it was so tough, battling away day by day. I just don't think anyone would have expected me to end up where I have ended up. I was always trying, always improving but I think it just took a long time for me to prove myself. I wasn't going to get in on natural talent or potential. It wasn't going to be handed to me. I knew that because, on paper, I wasn't anybody's favourite." (newsroom.co.nz, 02 May 2018; inspomag.co.nz, 21 Nov 2017)

SMALLER STATURE
At 170 centimetres tall she is significantly shorter than her older sister [184 centimetres] and most rowers. But rather than a hindrance, she believes this has helped drive her to succeed. "I think it's actually probably why I'm successful now - because I had to work so much harder. It was never natural speed. I had to be technically better. I was always short so they said, 'You have to row longer', so I would row longer, longer, longer, and now they're like 'You're too long, row shorter'. I was always trying to do more and it was never enough. Because working as hard as anybody else is never enough for me. The biggest decision I made was that if I wanted to be an elite rower and go to the Olympics, I had to stop just slipping into teams. I couldn't use my height as an excuse for not being the fastest. If you want to make teams you have got to win seat races and out on the water and that's what I started to do." (nzherald.co.nz, 17 Aug 2019; newsroom.co.nz, 02 May 2018)