NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Yale Heavyweight Crew has won the last three IRA National Championships while capturing five straight Eastern titles. The impact of the program can also be felt in international circles where seven Bulldogs earned medals at the last world championships.
 
Forty-five Yale Heavyweight athletes have qualified for Olympic competition since the school's varsity boat took gold in Paris as the U.S. representative in 1924. The Bulldogs had one other boat become the U.S. eight and many individuals have competed for America and other countries since then, capturing 29 medals, including 21 gold over a dozen different games.
 
Now it's time to focus on the next summer Olympic Games. Fourteen former Eli oarsmen are contending for spots in the Tokyo Games scheduled for this July 23 to Aug. 8. Athletes competing for Olympic qualification are often sensitive about publicity, so we are not able to list everyone who is in the hunt.
 
The current Eli candidates are experiencing a mix of conditions, situations and opportunities, depending on the country and its resources. Here are six Bulldogs who could share information about their journeys.
 
 

Tom Dethlefs '12, Lawrenceville, N.J. – Team USA
 
Dethlefs, who is training and working in Oakland, Calif., is hoping to row in either the U.S. straight four or eight. The team currently has 12 spots and he is one of about 20 in competition. The U.S. also hopes to qualify the remaining sweep boat and a pair at the Final Qualification Regatta in Lucerne this spring.  

"With the four and eight qualified, we need to establish the lineups so I expect to have a naming date sometime next spring. The official deadline is June 3, although I anticipate an earlier date given much of the work we are doing is carried over from last year," said Dethlefs, whose day begins at 5:30 a.m. so he can train from 6:30 to 9, refuel and work for few hours on investment research before an hour-long erg session and weight lifting.
 
After dinner he typically gets a bit more investment work in. Several times each week, he will have an additional row during the middle of the day for 60 to 90 minutes. "On Sundays, if I'm not too beat up from the prior six days of rowing, erging and lifting, I'll try to get out for a two or three-hour recovery ride on my road or mountain bike." 
 
His fuel comes from a cooking rotation among roommates. They were recently introduced to Yotam Ottolenghi, and are working their way through his modern middle Eastern cookbook, Jerusalem. 

Dethlefs, an alternate at the 2016 Olympics who has been on 10 national teams, won numerous world championship medals and set two world records, emphasized the tremendous effort it takes to sustain a lifestyle that revolves around training and generating peak performance.
 
"I have been rowing at a senior national team level for over eight years since I graduated from Yale, and in many ways you learn that to a certain degree injuries and career and social life related sacrifices are the cost of trying to win an Olympic medal. Most athletes will sustain injuries of varying seriousness, those who have lapses in performance will face funding issues, and we will all face opportunity costs in choosing this path over others. Coming up just short in 2016 was a blow that required me to step back and reflect on if and how I would move forward to Tokyo." 
 
Dethlefs and Steve Gladstone, the Craig W. Johnson '68 Head Coach of Yale Heavyweight Crew, were together for two years in New Haven, and the legendary mentor made a big impact on the oarsmen.
 
"Steve (Gladstone) brought with him a wealth of knowledge about the level and intensity of rowing that it takes to succeed in college and on the national team. Being able to benchmark myself against Olympians that he had coached was motivating and a lot of fun. More than anything though, Steve brought a strong sense of purpose and responsibility to the boathouse that has stayed with me across all the different teams I have competed with."
 
Dethlefs took full advantage of his opportunities off the water and got additional motivation while on campus with the rest of the community.
 
"I think Yale College helped me appreciate the value of working towards excellence across multiple dimensions. With so many classmates pursuing fascinating and equally engaging work, I felt motivated to push myself academically while also bringing full measure to training on the water. This has helped me in the long run as I have balanced my professional and athletic careers."
 

Andrin Gulich '21, Zurich, Switzerland – Team Switzerland
 
Gulich, who took Yale classes online last fall but is out of school this spring and will graduate in 2022, is training and competing with former Bulldog teammate Paul Jacquot for a spot in Switzerland's four. Gulich joined the national team last fall and is one of six candidates who will train through the national team trials in March before hearing his status.
 
The boat itself is qualified but the individual rowers remain to be selected. This selection will happen in March 2021 at the final trials. From Wednesday to Sunday he lives and trains in the national training center in Sarnen. On Mondays (day off) and Tuesdays, he is home in Zurich and has a workout with his local club or on his own.
 
He typically trains three times a day with two rowing sessions and one lifting or ergo segment.
 
"The road to the Olympics is filled with obstacles. There are two points I am currently focusing on. One is to get enough recovery besides training with the national team and studying full time, and the other is to keep my chronic knee problems (generalized patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS)) under control with the increased training volume," said Gulich, who said Coach Gladstone has made him a better athlete and rower.
 
"Steve Gladstone has taught us the values of hard work by bringing full measure to every training and stroke. But even more importantly, he has thought us to do our sport with passion and have fun while competing."
 

Paul Jacquot '18, Chalon sur Saone, France – Team Switzerland
 
Jacquot, one of six competing for a spot in a four that Switzerland qualified for the Games, should find out if he is going to Tokyo during the March 2021 national trials.
 
"The road to the Olympics is filled with obstacles, but Steve Gladstone taught us to stay resilient, stubborn and has inculcated values of hard work and grit that allow us to show up for training every day, even when it's freezing, you are tired and everything in your body hurts. The most important lesson Steve has taught us, is to remember to have fun while rowing and especially competing. Our future life in the office will not be half so physically strenuous but also not half so much fun," said Jacquot, who is currently competing with former Yale teammate Andrin Gulich for one of the four seats.
 
The former Yale captain is living, training and eating at the training center in Sarnen, Switzerland. A normal season would include 18 or 19 weeks on the road, but the last year was anything but normal. Their typical training week is 16 sessions, completing three training sessions a day at the center, from Wednesday to Sunday, while working out once from home on Tuesdays. 
 
Stephan Riemekasten '17, Hamburg, Germany – Team Germany
Riemekasten

, who finished his third semester of medical school last fall while trying to be a father of two children, is also vying for a seat in the double or quad for the German team at Tokyo. He is currently considered the "spare," but could move up by this summer.
 
"There is one other guy (competition for final spot), a young gun who just raced U23s and is physically much stronger than me, but slower on the water. Our head coach prefers physical strength though, so it is very possible that he could nudge me out but I am pretty sure that I currently have the better standing, being one of the fastest rowers on the team in the single (even faster than many who are currently in a boat) and having earned some respect from our coaches over the last two years. Still, I need to improve my physicals parameters to be sure to keep my spot."
 
The pandemic has helped him better manage practice and med school. The coaches have promised to let him know his status before the summer term starts so he can take a leave of absence from school if necessary. If he's not in for Tokyo he will be ready to train for Paris in 2024, which will be the 100^th anniversary of the Yale Crew winning gold for the U.S. on the river Seine.
 
Riemekasten lives in a small house in Hamburg with his wife and children. He has a stationary bike and ergometer at home, and the water is 25 minutes away by bike.
 
"I lift weights at the Olympic training center, sometimes we drive 45 minutes to our big Olympic training facility, where we all have rooms and can sleep and get food cooked for us. The whole national team of my discipline, sculling is training together in Hamburg, so we are a group of seven or eight guys who see each other a lot. If we are at the big facility, we sleep there, even though I usually commute home in the evening to put my children to sleep and leave early in the morning."
 
The German scullers train three times a day, usually six or seven days a week with two afternoons off to recover. They row at least once a day, lift weights about three times a week, and the rest is cardio, either two or three hours on the bike or the ergometer.
 
"When we train in Hamburg, I have more time for the kids. I usually row in the mornings, come home or go to med school if there is a class that meets in person and then train another session in the afternoon. Sometimes there is a run or a stretch session scheduled for the evening. We will be going to Portugal for 2.5 weeks at a time, four times in total in the month of January, February and March. There we also go for three to even four sessions a day, with the fourth one being something to facilitate recovery." 
 
Riemekasten is compensated by the German Army to row, which is a great way to finance his studies. Medical school in Germany is funded by tax payers, so it's a great deal for the future Bulldog doctor.
 
"The goal is to pass all exams and keep making progress. It is definitely stressful sometimes, and it's hard to stay focused when you are tired."
 
If they are able, the German team plans to attend all three World Cups and the European Championships prior to a big training camp in Austria and then Japan before the Olympic Games.
 
Whether he competes at Tokyo or not, Riemekasten continues to use his Yale experience to help him thrive on and off the water.
 
"I think the best thing I learned under Coach Gladstone was the mental toughness regarding the physical pain you inflict on yourself while rowing. It sounds extreme, but in Germany coaches aren't pushing us to our limits as much, following a philosophy of a lot of base work and very few high intensity trainings because of a belief that the physical gains from them is limited. At Yale, we learned to be tough, we practiced going hard even though everything hurt again and by doing so learned to evaluate our limits and keep pushing in a tough race. I took this with me to Germany and sometimes miss the high intensity trainings. Still, I strongly believe that my success (finishing fourth in Germany singles) last year was possible because I could push myself harder than others in a race situation. I know that I can thank for that the seven-mile home races against teammates at Yale, two eights side by side every Monday for month during fall, winter and spring."
 

Dan Williamson '22, Auckland, New Zealand – Team New Zealand
 
Williamson, who aspires to row for his country's eight in Tokyo, is taking time off from Yale to take a shot through the newly created Rowing NZ program called the Elite Development Squad. The Olympic athletes will be selected from this or the NZ 2020 "Summer Squad." 
 
"Over several months I increased my training load and am now doing essentially the same training program as the elite athletes, and I am rowing in the same boats as them too (he is essentially part of the Summer Squad. There are roughly 12 guys going for the eight seats in the Men's 8+."
 
Selection for the eight is set for early next month. New Zealand has yet to qualify a men's eight for Tokyo, but it is hoping to do so at the Last Chance Regatta (Williamson said it's also called the regatta of death) in Lucerne on May 16-18.
 
Williamson and his group train out of the national high-performance center on Lake Karapiro. The facility sits at the end of a 24km long lake, making it the ideal venue.
 
"We can easily get in a lot of km's without having to turn around. All the elite NZ rowers train out of the same building, so it is an extremely inspiring place to be, surrounded by such a group of world-class athletes," said Williamson, who is living in a flat with three rowers who are also training full time. "It's great to live with many like-minded and motivated athletes. We take turns cooking dinners and doing the chores."
 
The NZ rowers usually have 13 sessions in a week: two sessions a day (occasionally three) Monday through Saturday. Most of the sessions are rowing on the water, while they lift and erg a few times a week. In addition, they have mobility and stretching sessions for injury prevention and often have workshops, meetings and appointments with nutritionists, physiotherapists, psychologists, physiologists, coaches and other support staff.
 
"We clock up anywhere between 150km and 250km of rowing (or equivalent) each week, depending on what phase of the training cycle we are in. Most sessions are between 20km and 30km long taking up to 2.5 hours each. In between all the training, I am pretty much eating and resting/sleeping. Differing my study for the entire year has allowed me to fully commit to this training schedule."

Williamson has made a huge jump from U23 to elite rowing with its increase in volume, intensity and strain, something made possible from the first part of his Yale experience.
 
"The culture of Yale Crew brings out the absolute best in the oarsmen. The work I have done with Coach Gladstone and the entire Yale crew team over the last two years has prepared me exceptionally well for what I am doing right now. Technically and physiologically I was close enough to where I needed to be that with some solid work in NZ, I could make the step up. Upon my arrival to Yale in the fall of 2018, Yale Crew reinvigorated my love for the sport and as a result has put me in, and kept me in, a very positive mindset today."
 
Williamson's Olympic quest is somewhat like a sabbatical from school, and he is hoping to help the Bulldogs return to the national spotlight. 
 
"Yale Crew is also a great source of motivation – I can't quite put a finger on it but there is something special about the team. I cherish the memories already made with my teammates and cannot wait to see what we can do when we get back together. I am very proud to be a part of it and every day I try to make it proud too."
 

Ollie Wynne-Griffith '17, London, UK – Team Great Britain
 
"Last year, I was provisionally named in the six seat of the men's eight for the Tokyo Games. It's a boat class I've raced in the past three years, winning Bronze at the 2018 and 2019 World Championships. With postponement, selection was reopened and we currently have 18 guys pushing hard for 12 guaranteed racing seats," said Wynne-Griffith, who is living in Henley-on-Thames and training at the National Training Centre in Caversham.
 
He leaves his home each morning at 7 and returns by 5 p.m. The group's day includes rowing on the water, erg workouts and weight lifting with some cross training interspersed. They get a day off every other Sunday.
 
"There have been a few obstacles to overcome the past few years. I am constantly managing hip complications relating to a cartilage tear, but that's just part and parcel of the journey," said Wynne-Griffith.
 
Team Great Britain is trying to keep camps UK based and avoid any COVID outbreaks. The former Yale rower said the team is considering a water camp in Portugal towards the middle of 2021.
 
Wynne-Griffith is constantly reminded of the Yale program as he pursues Tokyo.
 
"Steve (Gladstone) and Yale Crew have had a profound impact on the athlete that I am today. I would not be here still pushing for my Olympic dream without my four years under Steve. I still lean heavily on the lessons that he instilled into me daily throughout my Yale career. Spectemur Agendo. You'll be known by your actions; you'll be known by your deeds."