Jones really hopes to bring home a medal
Reigning world champion Zeidler is the favourite to capture gold in Tokyo
Trevor Jones is not at the Tokyo Olympics just for the experience.
When Jones, 23, first gained acclaim as a teenager, winning the single men’s sculls gold medal at the 2017 World Rowing Under-23 Championships, Rowing Canada regarded him as a potential 2024 Olympic candidate. Jones won a second U23 gold in 2018.
The fact he got there quicker than initially expected doesn’t change the goal the Burleigh Falls resident has every time he lines up to race.
“I’m there to win a medal,” he said. “It won’t be all or nothing if I don’t win a medal but it will mean that much more if I do. I’m there to race.”
There aren’t as many divisions as at a world championships so there will be fewer athletes at the Olympic regatta. “It’s a small regatta but the stage is a lot bigger. It’s how I approach it. My mentality going in is going to be no different than any other regatta I have raced,” Jones said.
Reigning world champion Oliver Zeidler of Germany, who Jones has never faced, is the gold-medal favourite.
A Russian who came out of nowhere to win the final Olympic qualifier is now in the mix. Rowers from Denmark, Norway and Croatia all have podium potential.
“There’s a long list of guys who are capable of being on top of that podium,” Jones said.
“If I can get into that ‘A’ final where 50 per cent of the crews win a medal, I think I have a really good ability to race and then who knows what can happen? I have to take it race by race, starting with the heats.”
Canada’s only men’s single sculls medal was a bronze by Bob Mills at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Jones said Canada prioritized its men’s eight for many years and its sculling program hasn’t been particularly strong for some while, he added, in explaining why it’s been a 21-year gap since Derek Porter was Canada’s last Olympic single sculler.
“It’s cool,” he said, of being the first in a long time, “but I’ve worked to be here and it’s not really something I’m focusing on. It’s near to think about but it’s not something I’m thinking about all the time. I think representing Canada is the big thing and what boat doesn’t really matter as much.”
In 2019, Rowing Canada thought there was a chance Jones could help propel a double into an Olympics berth at the 2019 World Rowing Championships, which served as a qualifying event for Tokyo.
Coming off surgery to repair compartment syndrome in his forearm, Jones didn’t feel he was as ready as he could be for the event and they ended up in the “C” final well out of the Olympic qualifying spots.
Rowing Canada put Jones back in a single for the final Olympic qualifier in May 2020, which, like the Olympics, got postponed to 2021.
By the time the regatta came around, it had been three years since Jones had raced a single internationally. A Polish sculler Jones beat at U23 was the favourite as Jones had become an unknown quantity again.
“If I had raced (the world championships) in 2018, I had the potential to do really well. I knew if I worked hard and worked to get me back to where I was, that once I got there it’s just a matter of getting faster.”
The Russian won the qualifier but Jones beat the Polish rower in a sprint to the finish to earn the final Olympic berth.
“I knew if I didn’t let him get away from me at the start and I stuck with him through the middle that in the second thousand I could walk away from him,” said Jones.
Jones’s opening heat is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday (8:30 a.m. Friday Tokyo time).