Ballarat Sport Hall of Fame - Katrina Werry | The Courier | November 7, 2024 - video Dailymotion

David Brehaut speaks with 2024 Ballarat Sports Hall of Fame inductee Katrina Werry (rowing)

Transcript

00:00I'm so privileged to be recognised tonight with all these other amazing inductees.

00:05Tell us about the early days of getting into rowing.

00:09What actually took you into the sport?

00:11Well, what really intrigued me about rowing was that you were sitting down in a boat and

00:17I wasn't very good at other ball sports, so I tried rowing and I was actually pretty good

00:22at it, so it just stuck.

00:24And you were at a school where there was a pretty strong rowing program, obviously.

00:28Absolutely.

00:29My coach has always had a really strong rowing program, so I feel like I was really fortunate

00:33to be at that school and rowing for them.

00:36At that stage, the last thing that would have been on your mind, or like you always hope,

00:40would have been to become an Olympian, a world champion.

00:45Tell us about the highs of your rowing career.

00:49Well, it wasn't until I moved to Melbourne and actually started to see a bit of success

00:55in the underage leagues that I actually thought I could do it at a senior level and at the

01:01Olympic Games.

01:02So, in those early days, I didn't really have the Olympics on the cards, so it was a bit

01:08of a challenge sort of finding my niche and how good I was at it in the early days.

01:14But throughout my career, I've had a lot of ups and downs, like any sporting person, and

01:20I just found that the most rewarding thing for me was enduring the journey and making

01:25lifelong friends.

01:27One particular highlight, I think I may know the answer, but maybe was it that first Olympics?

01:33Was it standing on top of the podium at the World Championships?

01:35Both are two of my biggest highlights of my rowing career, definitely winning the World

01:40Championships both in 2017 and then 2019 as well, and then being a part of the Olympic

01:48team in 2020-2021 was obviously one of the biggest highlights of my rowing career, and

01:54I'm super, super proud to be a part of the Olympic team.