Myer rower wins Triple Crown
Evan MacRae celebrated winning the Triple Crown of high school rowing in appropriate fashion Sunday.
After capturing Schoolboy gold in the 72-kilogram single to go with his previous victories at the Stotesbury Cup in Philadelphia and the varsity boys single at the Scholastic Rowing Association of America championships at Dillon Lake, Ohio, the 17-year-old let coach Meredith Petrychanko push him into the water three times off the launch dock on Henley Island.
“My coach got to push me in three times, one for each one,” said the Grade 12 student at A.N. Myer Secondary School in Niagara Falls.
The pushes were the latest three in a long line of nudges forward by Petrychanko.
“It’s for all the troubles I caused in practices and the stress that I have caused to her coming down the courses in practices,” the three-time Henley champion said. “I think she deserves to push me in a couple of times.”
Petrychanko relished the symbolism of the soakings.
“We have had our ups and downs so he told me I deserved to push him in three times because I got him to three spots.
“We had a lot of great moments and I think the journey is just as important as the final goal.”
The biggest push Petrychanko gave to MacRae was to get him to believe in himself as much as she believed in him.
“I always knew that he had it in him to go after this goal, but he always seemed so unsure of himself and didn’t have the confidence,” she said. “We really worked on him believing in himself and he’s a really strong technical rower so it was finding that strength mentally to go and do it.”
She feels that self belief finally kicked in for MacRae on two separate occasions.
“There was one moment when he said, ‘Wow, I didn’t know I could go this fast’ and then just before Stotes (Stotesbury Cup), he did a drill and he did it perfectly. My stomach flipped and I realized that this kid was going to do it.”
Petrychanko agrees she has a special bond with her athlete.
“I think it’s way we communicate, the way we know to turn on and focus, when it is time to laugh and joke and when it’s time to communicate what the goal is and when it’s time to achieve it.
“He knows I am out there with him just as much as he is out there pulling.”
That partnership resulted in a Triple Crown conclusion Sunday in St. Catharines.
“The Triple Crown feels pretty crazy,” MacRae said. “It has been a pretty unreal three weeks and we’ve been building up to this moment for the last three years and it has always been in the back of my mind to do it.
“Now it has come true and it is a pretty amazing feeling.”
What makes it even sweeter is that it didn’t come easy.
“I knew there were a couple of guys coming for me, especially my training partner (David Picard from St. Francis). We’ve been battling it out all season long through practices and every day was a little bit of a race in itself. Today was just the final test of it.”
MacRae credited Picard for playing a role in his Triple Crown triumph.
‘It was probably one of the best things that could have happened to have the No. 2 to train against every single day and pushing me every day to the limit to get that extra inch.”
His Triple Crown victory will be a lifetime memory.
“I don’t know if it is one particular moment that I will remember,” he said. “It is a series of great events that happened, great practices and great moments that have led up to this event.”
MacRae is the first-ever Myer single rower to capture the Triple Crown and the first school boat to achieve the feat since a Myer senior boys eight accomplished the goal in 1992.
He won’t take much time to relax and enjoy his memorable run. He will resume training in anticipation of leaving June 27 for the junior national team training camp in Victoria, B.C.
