Emma Twigg beamed in her skiff at the start of the single sculls final and beamed at the finish line – and in between, so many thoughts must have passed through that determined mind beneath the blonde braids and the racing shades reflecting every boat bar one behind hers.
In the end, it was the young kid who took the gold, but the first person she ran to after the race was the veteran Twigg. Karolien Florijn, the 26-year-old Dutch rower with multiple world championships and an Olympic silver medal was now a champion – just as Twigg was three years ago. In that embrace on the pontoon, we could each feel the torch being passed.
Florijn may have been a class above on the course, but Twigg remains all class on it and off. For those of us who have been blessed to spend time around her, it was impossible not to feel humbled by her magnanimity, and touched by the fact she raced this time in front of her wife, Charlotte, and their wee lad, Tommy.
It really was a regatta for the mums on bums: Lucy Spoors and Brooke Francis, New Zealand’s gold medal double scullers; Helen Glover, the British legend who helped power the coxless four to silver; and Twigg, who smiled at the thought of her little family sitting in the stands at the end of the final two kilometres of this incredible sporting odyssey.
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The race itself drained everything but the indomitable spirit from Twigg. She knew she would have to put pressure on Florijn earlier in the race than she would have perhaps liked. Twigg, like so many Kiwi rowers, prided herself on her build and pounce strategy. In the third 500 metres it felt as if, despite the extra exertion required to stay connected to Florijn, she might just have enough to overpower her younger rival.
That there was nothing left to give at the end is not a criticism but an accolade. To the very last stroke, Twigg gave everything she had to a sport that doesn’t often give a lot back. Rowing is a taker. It saps an athlete’s strength and tests their patience. It demands their time, and their mind, and their personal life. Rowing is an exercise in Monastic living – a prayer to a higher power with no guarantee of an answer. Rowing is a brutal examination of faith and desire. It is a perpetual adoration of the eternal sacrifice.
There was something else. Watching Twigg row in this regatta was not just an observation of an incredible athlete – it was a vision of an incredible human, one who has found her joy and her purpose in life. She didn’t just look powerful and glorious propelling that sliver of carbon fibre through the dark water of the Vaires-Sur-Marne – she looked at peace with everything she has achieved and where now she is.
That’s no easy feat when one is red lining their cardiovascular system and battling the debilitating pain of a body filled with lactic acid.
There were anxious moments, I'm sure. Those tell-tale glances to her left, the puddles of Florijn’s strokes clearly visible in her peripheral vision, the possibility that an overlap could turn into a overtake, that a history-making defence of an Olympic title was within her grasp. I wonder whether she thought about that first Olympic games, 16 years ago now, when she turned up to Beijing as the youngest member of New Zealand’s rowing team and rowed for third in the B Final. I wonder if she thought, ‘Here I am again, the oldest member of the team, and I am still bossing this boat down the course for another Olympic medal.’ I hope she did, and I hope she felt immensely satisfied.
Twigg’s story is nothing short of inspirational. There is nowhere to hide in a rowing boat, and even less in a single scull. After Beijing it was a fourth in London, and a fourth again in Rio. I remember the pain of that one, interviewing her after the race, just before she announced she had had enough. That was eight years ago, now. It must feel like a different life.
Of course she came back. And now she is a two-time Olympic medallist, a descriptor to sit alongside, rather than on top of, all the many other triumphs in her career – the ones the public doesn’t pay much attention to, as is the case with so many sports that have their biggest days every four years.
She came back and crossed the line more a champion now than she was three years ago in Japan. And if you needed any further proof of that it was in her response to the young woman who looks set to dominate the class in the same way Emma Twigg did. There was a genuine happiness for Florijn. There was a genuine respect in return.
There was an acknowledgment that winning is important, especially when you’re winning the game of life – and that’s a game Twigg has definitely won.
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