The late bloomer makes good

By Whitey Reid

Published: July 7, 2008

Former Virginia rowers Wyatt Allen, Lindsay Shoop and Melanie Kok will all be competing at the Olympics in Beijing next month.

Kelsie Chaudoin won’t be there, but you get the feeling that if she stays on her current course it could only be a matter of time before she finds herself at the Games.

Chaudoin, who graduated from Virginia in May, recently earned a spot on the United States Under-23 national team. The 21-year-old will be competing at the upcoming world championships in Brandenburg, Germany, set for July 17-20.

“She’s the kind of young woman who could keep going [in the sport],” said Virginia rowing coach Kevin Sauer, “because she has good height — she’s 6-foot-3 — and her physiology is getting better and better.”

That’s the part of rowing that has taken Chaudoin the longest time to master. The former high school volleyball player was far from a natural when she walked onto the Virginia squad her freshman year.

Initially, Sauer says Chaudoin struggled with the technical nuances. The Germantown, Tenn. resident rowed Novice her first year, then improved incrementally each season.

This past year, Chaudoin was rewarded for her hard work. She was named a First-Team All American after her Varsity Eight boat won both the ACC and South/Central Regional Championships.

Sauer says Chaudoin’s perseverance has been uncanny.

“She kept at it and kept at it and kept at it,” he said, “and got better and better and better.

“It wasn’t just like overnight success. It was a lot of hard work over four years to get to where she’s gotten.”

Chaudoin, Virginia’s captain in 2007-08, says that the “delayed gratification” was the hardest thing to get used to after switching over from volleyball.

“You put lots and lots of work in and it takes a while for there to be any kind of [gratification],” she said, “but you understand and constantly remind yourself what you’re doing it for.”

Making the challenge even more daunting for Chaudoin was the fact that she had to balance her academics — she studied architecture, a highly demanding major — with five-hour daily practices.

Sauer believes a lot of people would have just thrown in the towel after not achieving immediate success.

“That’s what I admire about her and commend her for,” Sauer said. “She didn’t just roll over and give up and say, ‘Oh my gosh, this is really hard!’

“In this day of age, it’s like ‘I’ve got to get it right now, right here,’ and if you don’t get it with a day or two days or a week, kids give up on it. She didn’t show that at all.”

Chaudoin, whose father played football at Utah State and is a huge rowing enthusiast, has been training with her new Under-23 teammates in Charlottesville since mid-July. The team is made up of rowers from nine different schools — Virginia, Washington, Clemson, Northeastern, Yale, Notre Dame, Harvard, Wisconsin and Stanford.

Chaudoin was nominated for the team by Sauer, then attended a tryout camp where she had to beat out several rowers for one of the coveted spots.

Chaudoin, who leaves for Germany on July 12, likes her new team’s chances.

“I think [a gold medal] is absolutely attainable,” said Chaudoin, an ACC All-Academic Team selection in 2007. “I’ve never raced in an international competition before, but I think it’s attainable. We wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t.”

After Germany, Chaudoin isn’t sure what her next step will be, although she could receive an invite to train full-time with the national team. Sauer plans on recommending Chaudoin to the coach.

“I think she’s got what it takes,” Sauer said. “It’s just a matter of her training another level more than we’ve able to do here at the collegiate level.

“If she sticks with it, I think she has a really bright future.”