Solo sculls — golden-hour training session
Competition water — aerial perspective
5:30am, cold dock, first stroke is always ugly. By the tenth, your body remembers. Shanghai Youth Rowing Team — year-round, no off-season, six to eight hours a week.
Rowing teaches you what happens to technique when you're destroyed. At 1200m of a 2000m piece, every instinct says shorten the stroke. Holding form when it costs the most — that's the whole sport.
"The water doesn't care how you feel. It only responds to what you actually do."
I run video analysis and race-day prep for the team. Your body lies to you about what your stroke looks like — the video doesn't.
My 2000m of 7:28 — world top 83% for U14, no dedicated indoor training block. Every PR was earned in the last quarter, when the only question is how much you'll hurt.
From the Huangpu River to a World Championship arena. World #6 in the U19 Mixed 5000m Relay at WRICH 2026.
At 1600m of the WRICH relay, everything either falls apart or locks in. I held it — not willpower, but three years of trained habit. That same instinct shows up everywhere: staying calm when an autonomous routine fails mid-run, holding structure when a debate case gets torn apart. Rowing rewired how I handle pressure.