Just a year after Jeremy Hall started rowing, the 27-year old won silver at the World Championships in Bulgaria.
“I can’t say that it’s quite sunk in yet. It just happened last Friday and I’ve been traveling, so I’ve been quite busy. But to say that I’m already top two in the world one year in, and the guy I finished second to all season he was finishing in World Cups and 20 or more seconds ahead of the field.”
The event Hall competes in, PR2 Men’s Single, is a para-rowing event for people with trunk and arm function.
Hall’s knees are fused as a result of numerous internal bleeds caused by haemophilia type A, an inherited bleeding disorder which causes exaggerated bleeding and poor clotting.
“Because my knees are fused I don’t have the capacity to bend my knees and push off them in the traditional sense. So I use a fixed seat and I generate the majority of my power from the hip, the trunk, using a lot of my core to generate the power there.”
Raised in St. Paul, Hall had spent years competing in sledge hockey and won gold at the national level in 2017, the year he started his Masters degree at the University of Alberta.
“I had grown quite accustomed to that high performance environment, the training schedule and all that. I found it was a good release for my studies. So once the season ended, then there was this month after nationals where I was almost going stir crazy because I had all this time to devote to my Masters but I didn’t find myself quite as focused because I was looking for something to do.”
Some of Hall’s teammates from sledge hockey and colleagues in the para-sport community suggested he look in to rowing, because his relatively tall body type and disability both made him well suited to the sport.
“In sledge hockey, it’s a bit of a detriment to have the long legs sticking out, it affects your manoeuvrability and it’s added weight. Whereas in rowing, being in the boat, those aren’t as much of a detriment and I have these long leaner arms to push off of and the physiological benefit there is there’s added muscle to use.”
Because of his disability, just getting out on the water in Edmonton was a challenge.
“There was a little bit of apprehension from the club themselves, and it’s something you go through often with para-sport is people’s perception of para-sport is very skewed, and the feeling there was ‘we can’t deal with this kid, he’s going to drown.’ And I can swim and everything.”
Coaches at the Edmonton Rowing Club helped him to connect with Martin George, the para-coach for Rowing B.C. and Hall spent the summer of 2017 on land working on the rowing machines and getting in rowing shape. He was invited to compete at the national level shortly after getting out on the water in B.C. that fall.
Hall’s eventual goal is to compete in the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo, but to do that he needs to find a partner.
“The only Paralympic event for my classification is a mixed double. At this point there is no high performance female athlete at the national level. In order to qualify for and compete at the Paralympics I need a female partner. That’s the immediate objective.”
Finding a woman with both the right type of disability, the interest in rowing, and the mental and physical ability to compete at the high performance level is a challenge. Hall says Rowing Canada is working to recruit a partner for him.
“It likely also factors in to why things haven’t sunk in yet. I’m proud of this accomplishment and will enjoy it, I still have vast room for improvement, especially with only one year experience. I’ve always been one to focus on next steps and the bigger picture, so I’m already focused on what I need to do for the remainder of this year and in 2019 in order to qualify and compete at the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo.”
For now, once Hall returns from traveling in Romania and Bulgaria, he’ll be living in Victoria, B.C. full-time, pursuing his PhD and preparing to defend his Masters thesis on Oct. 29.
