Pembroke alumna, Erin Wysocki-Jones selected for GB Rowing in the World Championships 2019

Pembroke Alumna Erin Wysocki-Jones (History and English, 2011) has been officially selected to represent Great Britain again at next week’s 2019 World Championships for rowing. After a successful rowing career to date, Erin and the crew are now working toward winning gold next week, and have already set their sights on Tokyo next year.

We caught up with Erin to congratulate her, and hear the story of how her passion for rowing began during Freshers week at Pembroke!

“I started coxing at Pembroke essentially as soon as I matriculated in 2011 when I went to the rowing taster event in the first week of Freshers. It was pretty intimidating at first as I had no idea what I was doing but on the Isis you have to learn fast and I quickly fell in love with the sport. As a cox you have to have a very good technical upstanding of the rowing stroke, be a dominant voice in the boat and a confident tactician… I definitely didn’t have any of these skills to start with but I developed them over time with a great coach (Barrie-Jon Mulder, PCBC’s Head Coach at the time) and with enthusiastic Women’s Captains! 

My fondest memories of rowing at Pembroke come from time spent with my crew mates - I loved training with the team and relished the fact that PCBC were always a force to be reckoned with on the Isis. I won Sportsperson of the Year at Pembroke and I was also voted Pembrokian of the Year in 2014 after coxing for the Oxford University Women’s Boat Club from the summer of 2013 through to my graduation in 2014, gaining my blue and winning the Boat Race in 2014. Summer Eights 2014 with M1 was a particular highlight, when I managed to keep Christ Church from bumping us out of our Headship spot even when they had a canvas of overlap!

During my second year, I completed an internship with Ernest and Young and was subsequently offered a place on their graduate scheme. I was subsequently offered an MSt in Archaeology at Pembroke and so I intended to complete my masters, compete in another boat race and then go to London to work in the city, however, things are never quite that simple! Whilst I achieved a 2:1, I did not get a high enough mark to start my Masters and was left with a year to kill before my graduate scheme began. I began working from home for a start-up not-for-profit, developing their access schemes (I had been Access Rep at Pembroke in my Second Year) and was accepted to cox at Leander Club in Henley-on-Thames, the most successful Boat Club in the world.

I loved coxing at Leander and I enjoyed my job so much, I decided to defer the EY grad scheme for another year to continue training as a full time coxswain and enter the GB Development stream, whilst maintaining a full time job. I coxed at British and International Regattas, highlights included Henley Royal Regatta and becoming British Champion in 2016. In the summer of 2016 I coxed the GB Women’s Development 8+ and was made the spare coxswain for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. After the 2016 Games, I was subsequently invited to the GB training centre to begin training with the Olympic squad full time. 

In Spring 2017 I coxed the Women’s 8+ to a fourth place at the European Championships however I was not selected to compete in the World Championships that year for the Olympic Programme. Instead, it was suggested to transfer to the Paralympic Programme for the following season (they have an able bodied cox and row a standard, non-modified boat) to compete for the seat in their programme, believing I would be a great fit. They were right and I was successful in being selected for the PR3 Mix4+ in 2018! There are two men and two women in the four and I cox from the bows, which means I lie down at the front of the boat. As they all have minor disabilities (visually impaired, mild cerebral palsy for example) and I am in a bow loader so it requires a lot of boat feel (as I can’t see a lot!) and a heightened understanding of the technical stroke. 

In 2018, we won the World Championships after a very tough season with injury and I am delighted to have been selected again for my second World Championships with GB out in Austria. I am lucky enough to be a full Lottery-funded athlete for GB rowing and this is my full-time career. We train 6 days a week, 49 weeks a year and we spend about 100 days a year away on training camps and at regattas and championships. This year, the World Championships also serve as a qualification regatta for Tokyo 2020 and we need to finish in the top 8 to earn a spot at next year’s games. The crew is gunning for gold again this year and it would make it 9 consecutive wins at the World Championships if we are successful! Then it will be heads down again as we prepare for Tokyo next year.”

Racing starts on Sunday 25th August with the final is on Saturday 31st August at 13:25 on the BBC Red Button, with a highlights show on BBC2. We wish Erin and her crew the very best of luck.