David Brehaut speaks with 2024 Ballarat Sports Hall of Fame inductee Katrina Werry (rowing)
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00:00I'm so privileged to be recognised tonight with all these other amazing inductees.
00:05Tell us about the early days of getting into rowing.
00:09What actually took you into the sport?
00:11Well, what really intrigued me about rowing was that you were sitting down in a boat and
00:17I wasn't very good at other ball sports, so I tried rowing and I was actually pretty good
00:22at it, so it just stuck.
00:24And you were at a school where there was a pretty strong rowing program, obviously.
00:28Absolutely.
00:29My coach has always had a really strong rowing program, so I feel like I was really fortunate
00:33to be at that school and rowing for them.
00:36At that stage, the last thing that would have been on your mind, or like you always hope,
00:40would have been to become an Olympian, a world champion.
00:45Tell us about the highs of your rowing career.
00:49Well, it wasn't until I moved to Melbourne and actually started to see a bit of success
00:55in the underage leagues that I actually thought I could do it at a senior level and at the
01:01Olympic Games.
01:02So, in those early days, I didn't really have the Olympics on the cards, so it was a bit
01:08of a challenge sort of finding my niche and how good I was at it in the early days.
01:14But throughout my career, I've had a lot of ups and downs, like any sporting person, and
01:20I just found that the most rewarding thing for me was enduring the journey and making
01:25lifelong friends.
01:27One particular highlight, I think I may know the answer, but maybe was it that first Olympics?
01:33Was it standing on top of the podium at the World Championships?
01:35Both are two of my biggest highlights of my rowing career, definitely winning the World
01:40Championships both in 2017 and then 2019 as well, and then being a part of the Olympic
01:48team in 2020-2021 was obviously one of the biggest highlights of my rowing career, and
01:54I'm super, super proud to be a part of the Olympic team.