RACE DAY.

The truth about grit, Lucy says, is that it is not a personality trait you are born with. It’s built.

"You almost need to lose races to become a better rower."

Losing is not a failure of the athlete. It's part of how we're made. Grit gets built in the days you would rather not talk about. In training. In defeat. In showing up again the morning after.

"I think every athlete has to have grit and determination because it's hard. It's really hard."

Ask Lucy what she would tell a younger athlete now.

"I would remember my roots and remember who I am. I was a good rower because I was Lucy Stephan. Because I remembered my roots. While you're trying to be a better athlete, don't forget what got you in there in the first place."

The athlete you are becoming is not somebody new. It is the person you already are.

Race day doesn't reward the athlete who avoids the hard days. It rewards the ones who have already lived through them, and remembered where they came from.

In conversation with Lucy Stephan OAM and five other voices in the sport: Race Day is Won and Lost Before You Arrive.

It’s won in the countless hours of practice that prepare you to step up to the line with confidence. In yourself. In your crew. The best thing a cox can do on race day is not something new. It’s a version of something they have already done a hundred times.

"You don't turn up at the start line and do something miraculous. You're trying to replicate the best thing that you've done in training."

Every cox will make mistakes. Every crew will have a race that does not go the way it was planned.

"You don't actually need to get everything right. You could stuff something up massively. It's about how you respond and adapt to it that matters."

We can’t all win. Not every day. Some are a podium finish. Some are the lesson.

"There's always good things you can pull out of bad races and there's always bad things you can pull out of good races."

Charlie's advice for coxes is simple.

"Not to get emotionally too caught up in the nuts and bolts of it and just work on how am I going to show up better next time."

Race day doesn't reward the cox who tries to be extraordinary on the day. It rewards the one who trusts the work, responds to what happens, and takes the lesson home.

In conversation with Charlie Durkin and five other voices in the sport: Race Day is Won and Lost Before You Arrive.

When the nerves hit: Breathe. Visualise. Trust the training.Felix has two moves.

"You just have to think you’re the best. You put in all this work for this one moment. So you kind of have to go back and understand you've trained so hard to be here."

"Look at the guy in front of you. You know you're going to pull with them now. The brotherhood we've had in that entire boat calm my nerves and know who I'm pulling for."

Trust that the work compounds.

"This sport is mostly built on consistency. Rowing isn't the type of sport where a few hard workouts and you're at that elite level. You could go months and not see any improvement. But if you keep training, keep training, you'll always see improvement in the long run."

Race day doesn't reward the athlete who’s trying to prove something on their own. It rewards the crew who arrived together, and the athlete who kept showing up.

In conversation with Felix Caceres and five other voices in the sport: Race Day is Won and Lost Before You Arrive.

Julia recommends a pre-race meal two to three hours before the race. Higher carbohydrate, lower fibre. Not too much protein. A top-up 20-30 minutes out. A banana, handful of lollies, sports drink or juice. Start the day well hydrated and to drink water with each meal.

None of it new on the day. All of it practised.

According to Julia, on multi-race days, the same rule applies with tighter margins.

Under an hour between races, she recommends liquids. One to two hours, a small carbohydrate top-up. Two to three hours, a proper meal you have eaten a hundred times before.

Multi-race days magnify small nutrition mistakes. The way to survive them is to have already made the decisions.

Race day doesn't reward the athlete who reaches for something new. It rewards the athlete who has already done the work.

In conversation with Julia Bone and five other voices in the sport: Race Day is Won and Lost Before You Arrive.

The most common mistake Mike sees in young athletes is the belief that race day is where the race is decided.

"As you get more veteran in your career, you realise that there's nothing you can control on race day except what we did to get there."

Control the controllables.

Race day does not care whether you slept well. Whether the wind is up. Whether the crew next to you is faster. Everybody wants to win. Not everyone can.

"There aren't any surprises on race day. We are who we are."

This is where the sport becomes honest with you. The result is not entirely yours. What is yours is what you built to get there.

"If you try to control what you can't, you've already lost the race. You're giving seats away by trying to put a harness around something that is basically moving water, which is impossible."

"Every time you leave the race course, you're going to win, even if your bow ball doesn't cross first. If you can learn about yourself and better yourself, that's a win."

Mike coaches through the losses more than the wins. He believes this is where the athlete is actually built.

"You can either let the loss linger or turn it into a lesson. You can have a win and learn nothing."

Mike came up as an undersized athlete who was told no, more times than he could count. He learned young that the size of the athlete is not the point. He built a doctrine out of what he had learned, and he still teaches it now.

"Athletes work hard to create a chance at winning. A champion works even harder to eliminate the chance of losing."

You are going to be told no. You're not always going to win. What matters is what you do next.

Race day doesn't show you who you wish you were. It shows you who you have already become. And what you do with that is up to you.

In conversation with Mike O'Hara and five other voices in the sport: Race Day is Won and Lost Before You Arrive.

Nerves are not a signal that something is wrong. They are the body preparing to fight.

“Let’s just turn this to excited because you’re excited. You want to be doing this. So this is exactly where you want to be. Just call that excitement, because it feels much the same.”

Both are the same jitter. Same tightness. Same racing pulse. What you call it is a choice. What you call it changes what it does.

By the time Sky got to the Paralympic final in Paris, the nerves had not disappeared. She shifted them into something usable.

“I knew what we were going to do. I knew my boat. I had all the trust in the world in my boat, genuinely, and I knew it was gonna happen.”

Trust in the crew. Trust in the preparation. Trust in what months of work had built.

The last five hundred was an out of body experience. She was pulling harder than she had ever pulled, individually and collectively.

“It’s like you, in the same second, cross the finish line at the buzzer, and then also you’re like, oh my God, it’s over. It was immediate tears. Just raw emotion.”

Some of what this sport teaches you cannot be given. It has to be lived. The tools you are building right now are the tools that will hold when the start line arrives.

Race day doesn’t reward panic. It rewards preparation. Nerves are not a problem to fix. They are a signal that you are exactly where you want to be.

In conversation with Skylar Dahl and five other voices in the sport: Race Day is Won and Lost Before You Arrive.