Thursday, May 7, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Schoonbee’s Olympic dreams on hold

Jessica Schoonbee is bored.
She gets up around 7:30 every day
— sleeping in compared to her typical
rowing schedule at Michigan.
She has an iced coffee and toast
with peanut butter for breakfast.
She tries to squeeze in a workout
either before or after her online
classes, still only half the amount of
training she does during the school
year.
In another reality, Jess would
be finishing up her sophomomre
year by taking finals in Ann Arbor
and gearing up for another Big Ten
Championship.
Or she’d be ramping up her
practice schedule for the Final
Olympic Qualification Regatta in
Switzerland.
She’d be in a boat on Belleville
Lake, training every day for the
chance to bring home a national title
at the end of the month.
Instead, she finishes her peanut
butter toast and sits down at her
computer.
When she’s done with her school
work, she tries to keep herself
occupied, spending time with her
family and running — she even dyed
her own hair a couple weeks ago.
That’s
the
routine
she’s
developed since returning home
to Johannesburg in the middle of
March, when her rowing career, her
Olympic dreams and her life were
put on hold because of COVID-19.
Last May — just before Big Ten
Championships — then-junior Tayla-
May Bentley picked up a call from
Roger Barrows, the head coach of the
South African National Team. He
had a question: did she and Jess want
to compete at the Under 23 World

Championships?
Both women had competed for
the Junior National Team in high
school, but because of their collegiate
racing schedule, they didn’t think
they’d get the opportunity to race for
their home country again until after
graduating.
Jess and Tayla-May spent all
year rowing in an eight and didn’t
have any experience in a pair. The
regatta was in less than two months
— it would be a shot in the dark,
but they’d dreamed of racing on
the international stage again. They
couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
They finished out the collegiate
season — winning the Big Ten
Championships
and
coming
in
third at NCAA Championships —
and returned to Ann Arbor to start
training in the pair.
From then on, all they did was row.
They woke up in the morning, went
to practice at Belleville, came back to
watch TV for a couple hours, then got
up to go to afternoon practice.
Transitioning from rowing in an
eight to rowing in a pair isn’t easy.
Maintaining balance in a smaller
boat is more difficult, and racing in a
pair typically takes longer.
Still, that wasn’t their biggest
obstacle. Because Jess and Tayla-
May were both used to rowing on
the port side, Jess had to switch
to starboard. In rowing, that’s
practically the equivalent of waking
up one day and deciding to be left-
handed.
But they came back day after day.
They had a single, unwavering focus:
get on the podium at U23s.
Day after day, they got faster.
Before they knew it, they were
sitting at the start of the A Final of
the Under-23 World Championships
next to Russia and Greece, the odds-
on favorites.

“I was just adamant that someone
was playing games with us,” Jess
said. “That we weren’t actually that
fast.”
But it wasn’t a game. After months
of training and planning, a lifetime
of dreaming and hoping, for this
moment, Jess and Tayla-May came
in second on the international stage.
The original plan had been to
stop after U23s, but the second-place
finish opened up new possibilities
for the duo. They had speed. And
the Senior World Championships,
the
first
chance
for
Olympic
qualification,were in a month. If
they kept training, there was a good
chance Jess and Tayla-May could
qualify for the 2020 Games.
But that meant more money, more
practices and more international
travel — not to mention the huge
commitment of training for the
Olympics if they qualified. The
Olympics was their dream, though,
and they never thought they’d have
the opportunity at such a young age.
Again, they took the leap of faith.
They kept up their routine for
another month before the regatta.
But as the race got closer, Jess
started to notice a stabbing pain in
her side. She iced it and went to the
team doctors, but nothing helped.
She thought she had fractured her
rib, but she couldn’t tell Tayla-May
before the race. So Jess kept rowing
despite the pain.
In the end, whether it was the
rib or their lack of experience in the
pair, their hopes of qualifying at the
Senior World Championships were
short lived. Teams had to come in
the top-three of the quarterfinal to
stay in contention to qualify. Jess and
Tayla-May were fifth, by a healthy
margin.
They had a choice to make. They
could fly back to South Africa
and
keep
training
throughout
the year for another chance to
qualify in May at the Final Olympic
Qualification Regatta, but that
would mean they’d have to take
the year off school. It would mean
graduating a year late and missing a
season the Wolverines were poised
to dominate, with no guarantee
their decision would pay off. Only
two more pairs would qualify — it
would be a long shot.
Jess talked the decision over with
her parents and coaches, but, in the
end, it was her older brother Kyle —
who’d already qualified to row at the
2020 Games — who tipped the scales.
“My brother said to me, ‘You
haven’t been in the boat for that long.
You switched sides; you fractured

your rib; your rib’s gonna get fixed;
you’re gonna get a lot faster. You’re
going to qualify,’ ” Jess said. “So I
decided I’m just going to give myself
a shot.
“I was extremely nervous. It’s
really hard to put all your eggs in one
basket.”
Jess and Tayla-May moved home
to South Africa, rented an apartment
and got back to work with the
National Team. While Tayla-May
trained out on the water in a single,
Jess did what she could while she
waited for her rib to heal.
She spent some time with her
family in Johannesburg. She watched
“Jane the Virgin.” Sometimes, she’d
get on the erg, an indoor rowing
machine, to see if she could row.
Yeah, still hurts.
She tried to get her body moving
any way she could — lifting and
squats mostly — but even a heavy
breath induced shooting pain. So
mostly, she waited.
Jess waited until a day in
November when she was finally
cleared to get back to training. Back
to rowing. Back on the road to Tokyo.
She left the doctor’s office and
headed back to the apartment she
shared with Tayla-May. Jess made
herself dinner and settled onto the
couch when Tayla-May came in
with eyes bloodshot from crying. She
was also on her way back from the
doctor’s.
The same day Jess was cleared,
Tayla-May was told she’d injured
both of her hip tendons. She likely
needed surgery, keeping her out for
the foreseeable future and making it
unlikely she’d be back in time for the
Olympics.
The national coaches asked Jess if
she would stay to train in a single and
try to qualify by herself in the spring.
“It was really hard, because I did
want to give myself a shot at the
Olympics,” Jess said. “But a big part
of it was that Tayla-May and I had
started this journey together, and I
didn’t want to end it without her.”
After months of training and
racing,
thinking
and
decision-
making, injuries and recovery, it was
time to go back to Michigan.
Jess flew back to the US at the
end of December for the Wolverines’
training
trip
in
Florida.
Even
though she was disappointed how
her Olympic quest had ended, she
was ready to throw herself into
Michigan’s season.
Last year, Jess stroked the
Wolverines
to
the
Big
Ten
Championship title and a third-place
finish at the NCAA Championship.
This year, their sights were set even
higher. With four rowers and the
coxswain returning from last year’s

boat, Michigan believed it could go
for gold — something the Wolverines
haven’t done in over 20 years.
“Everyone was so focused on
getting better technically,” Jess said.
“We knew that we could win this
season, which was something that
we didn’t know we could do last year.
Previous to this year, we were almost
too scared to want it really badly. You
could also feel that we were almost
scared of losing or failing. And I
think this year it was like all that’s
out the window — it doesn’t matter,
we’re gonna win no matter what.”
But two weeks before their first
scheduled race, all the rowers were
called to the training center. Jess
started to get a bad feeling. Classes
had already been moved online
due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and
most other conferences had already
canceled the rest of their seasons.
Michigan coach Mark Rothstein
was on a conference call when
the team got to the practice room.
They sat down, trying to prepare
themselves for whatever was about
to happen. Rothstein came in, still
on the phone, and sat in a chair at
the front of the room with his team
staring back at him. He handed the
phone to assistant coach Liz Tuppen
and explained to a silent audience
that their season was over before it
had even begun. Complete silence
fell over the room.
There would be no Big Ten
Championship and no NCAAs — no
chance to build on last year’s success.
For Jess, it was one more
premature ending in what had been
the most unpredictable year of her
life.
May isn’t going to be the month it
could’ve been for Jess. She’ll never
know whether she would have
qualified with Tayla-May or how the
Wolverines would have done in the
postseason.
For
now,
she’s
at
home,
establishing a new normal after a
year that has been anything but.
About two weeks after she got
home, it was announced the Tokyo
Games were being pushed back to
next summer.
She still dreams of going to the
Olympics, but there are so many
factors to consider. She has no idea
what the selection process would
look like or how it would fit in with
Michigan’s season. She doesn’t know
when she’ll be allowed to train, or
even what the next school year will
look like.
After she heard the news, Jess
checked her phone, and saw she’d
gotten a message from Tayla-May.
When she read it, she couldn’t tell if
it was a joke:
Should we go for it in 2021?
DESIGN BY JACK SILBERMAN

LANE KIZZIAH
Daily Sports Editor

12 Sports