In photo above L to R: Owen Maier, Keelan Good, Pablo Matan, and Nate Phelps
WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS — Incoming first year Williams rower Owen Maier has been named to the U.S. Under 23 men's quadruple sculls as the stroke seat for the upcoming World Rowing Championships to be held in Racice, Czech Republic from July 7-11.
Maier's selection to the quad comes after several weeks of a formal US Rowing selection camp hosted at Northeastern University under the direction of coach Jesse Foglia. Among all athletes selected to represent the United States at the World Rowing Championships, Maier is the only rower representing an NCAA DIII school.
Maier has had rowing around him ever since he was born as both his grandfather and father rowed in college. This made it all but inevitable that Maier would pick up rowing. After participating in some learn-to-row camps in middle school, a robust connection between Maier and the sport developed.
A successful high school career was abruptly halted by the pandemic and Maier decided to take a gap year to dedicate most of his time to training. He began to row for ARION, a development program in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. At ARION, Maier trained at sculling, which features two oars per rower, as opposed to sweeping, which features just one oar. In addition to developing a new skill set in sculling, Maier also credited much of that training to lowering both his 6k and 2k ergometer scores, with the latter, "Being [fast] enough to be invited to selection camp," he added.
The selection camp in Boston saw twenty-one rowers invited, with sixteen spots to be allocated. Maier notes that, "I came into the camp as the young guy—the only one who hadn't yet completed their freshman year of college, as well as the second smallest in the group." However, his time spent training with ARION gave him a competitive advantage over the other older athletes due to his focus on sculling. Many of his competitors had spent their recent college seasons sweeping, and thus Maier was able to leverage his time sculling with ARION to make an impression on the coaching staff and ultimately earn a spot on the team.
Practice sessions were held every day of the week with doubles on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. All practices were on the water, emphasizing technique and boat-moving ability. Maier expected a cut-throat experience where rowers were all competing for seats in boats before arriving to the camp, but because only five rowers were to be sent home, "Guys at the camp were a lot warmer to each other," he said. Maier attributed this to development to a productive and constructive environment.
As Maier looks ahead to racing at the U23 World Championships in the Czech Republic, he is excited at the prospect of performing well in the quadruple sculls, a discipline he notes that has been traditionally neglected by the U.S. Maier stated, "Our quad will be the huge step forward that America has needed for sculling, sort of pioneering a future for our team in the event."
Beyond Worlds, Maier is looking forward to starting his schooling at Williams: "I'm super excited to start taking classes at Williams and getting to know my classmates and the team, while seeing how fast we can get as a crew," he said.
When asked why he chose Williams, Maier replied, "I wanted my college experience to be one not dominated by just athletics or just academics, and instead have a nice balance of competitive team culture and excellent studies. Williams ended up being the ideal home to do that. In addition, everyone I've met while rowing this year has had nothing but extreme admiration for our coach,
Marc Mandel. Seeing the team perform as well as they did at the IRA National Championships this year is very encouraging for the years to come. Williams has one of the brightest futures in the college rowing world."
