After rowing taking No.1 spot for so long, double Olympic medallist Grace Prendergast is adjusting to life as a student at one of the world's oldest universities - and rowing towards one of the great amateur sporting clashes.
Grace Prendergast’s alarm goes off at 5am. Her morning begins with a 10-minute bike ride to the station, followed by a 10-minute journey on the train, before taking to the water with the prestigious Cambridge University Boat Club. Somehow, she manages to have time to shower before her 9am class.
The 29-year-old rower is working towards becoming a Master of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, three months after winning Olympic gold alongside Kerri Gowler in the coxless pair and silver in the women’s eight at the Tokyo Games.
After prioritising rowing for so many years, Prendergast is learning the ways of being a full-time student, a stark contrast to her life pre-Tokyo.
But rowing still plays an important role in her life. While she considers her future in the black singlet, she’s preparing for the most iconic rowing race in the world – rowing for Cambridge against Oxford University in The Boat Race.
Life in isolation
An Olympic Games like no other, social media was filled with heart-warming reunions and grand celebrations for athletes across the world after the delayed Tokyo Games. But the Kiwi contingency had it a little different.
There were to be no hugs at the airport, no tickertape parades of parties at home for the New Zealand team, all bustled into two weeks of managed isolation on their return.
For Prendergast, MIQ was a time of uninterrupted reflection after winning two medals, which she describes as “nice but weird”.
“It was really interesting, [MIQ] gave me a lot of time to reflect on the whole experience without getting caught up in all the hype of getting a medal and all that comes along with that,” she says.
Prendergast had even more time to reflect with barely 24 hours of freedom before New Zealand went into lockdown.
While that was a tough pill to swallow for a lot of the Tokyo returnees, Prendergast’s time with her family helped her get through her time in lockdown, before she left for England, relatively smoothly. “I was lucky I came off the Olympics really, really happy with how everything went,” she says.
Prendergast had every reason to be happy with the campaign. She and Gowler broke a world record on the way to their gold.
The Kiwi duo held the world’s best time of 6m 49.08s going into Tokyo, and temporarily lost their grip on it to a Greek pair in the first semifinal on the Sea Forest Waterway. But Prendergast and Gowler took it back in their semi, with a new world record of 6m 47.71s, and went on to win New Zealand’s first gold of the Games.
A day later, they became the first New Zealand rowers to win multiple medals at one Olympics, snaring the silver in the women's eight.
Sitting in Christchurch in lockdown, Prendergast switched focus to her next career move.
“Having something I was looking forward to going on to, gave me a little purpose and direction. It would have been hard mentally if I wasn’t really sure what my next step was going to be,” she says.
Head in the books
Prendergast is no stranger to academic success, completing a Bachelor of Business Studies and a Master of Business Studies from Massey University. But her time at Cambridge studying towards a Master of Philosophy is her first on-campus university experience.
“I did all my study by distance at home, just because it fitted in so well with rowing. Obviously we had to come overseas all the time so it was a bit hard to actually attend university,” she says.
In contrast, study has become first priority at Cambridge, with athletes already training for the 2022 edition of the Boat Race on the River Thames.
It will be the 76th women’s race, and the 167th men’s contest, and Cambridge University has won both races for the past three years. The 'Blue Boat' is the name given to the top crew from each university, and crew members are awarded the coveted 'light blue' colours of Cambridge (or 'dark blue' of Oxford).
At the weekend, Prendergast made her debut in light blue, rowing in Cambridge University Boat Club’s first competitive test, the Fours Head event, which prepares crews for the Boat Race.
Her coxless four crew also included fellow Kiwi Ruby Tew (who rowed in the women’s quad at the Tokyo Games) and British Olympian Imogen Grant.
Needing a bit of an adjustment period to get used to the schedule of being a full-time student, Prendergast has a solid support system around her, including Tew and fellow New Zealand rower Jamie Hunter, who rowed at the Rio Olympics.
“I’ve just been so impressed with how all the athletes here manage such full-on study with rowing on the side,” she says. “I’ve come through sort of prioritising my sport and making my study work around it, so it’s definitely different. But I’m getting used to managing it.”
Prendergast is at Queens' College in Cambridge, one of 12 Olympians and Paralympians to have attended since 1906. So is Tew, who's an MBA candidate.
While she isn’t fully certain where she wants to take her degree yet, Prendergast is enjoying learning in a new environment.
“In New Zealand, I mostly associated with sports people and, in particular, rowers, and everyone has come through a very similar pathway,” says Prendergast.
“I’ve struggled to realise what I want to do work-wise, so it’s been nice to hear of so many different options. It’s opened my eyes to what sort of opportunities are out there but I’m still slowly piecing that together.”
A third Olympics?
Prendergast’s studies finish at the end of June, and even though the idea of the journey home to New Zealand may seem unappealing - “I don’t want to do MIQ again,” she jokes - she has until then to figure out if she wants to commit to another cycle.
Come June, Prendergast will also have made a decision on her future with the Rowing New Zealand team. The next pinnacle event is the 2022 world rowing championships in the Czech Republic.
“Everyone’s just getting back into training, because we get quite a nice break after the Olympics. So I’ll start thinking seriously about my future with rowing soon, which will be a big decision either way,” she says.
“But at the moment I’m really enjoying doing it in a different capacity and as a different experience. I feel fresher and more rejuvenated with it. I’ll cross that bridge a little later down the track.”
If Prendergast does commit to another cycle, she has the chance to row at her third Olympic Games. She made history in New Zealand’s first women’s eight boat to compete at the Olympics when they came fourth at Rio in 2016.
A bonus of being a double Olympic medallist, Prendergast left her silver medal at home with her mum for any family and friends in New Zealand to celebrate.
However, the gold medal was packed in her suitcase. Prendergast admits she hadn’t fully had time to enjoy them before making the journey across the world.
If she needs any further motivation this year, she’ll know where to look.
