Rower Elijah Lopez will be taking his skills to the next level after making a post-secondary signing.
The 18-year-old Holy Rosary student committed to the Brock University men’s heavyweight team, which he will begin sporting for once he graduates.
Lopez says Brock University reached out to him earlier this year, and he’d been discussing the program with the school, meeting with the players and taking it all in before deciding to commit to the team on April 26th.
“We kept talking and I really liked how engaging they were. Just seeing how well they’ve done in the past years, it was a great opportunity and I just had to take it.”
Lopez has spent the last few years at Holy Rosary working hard to improve his skills in the sport. He had 7th place showing at the Canadian Indoor Rowing Championship and says he’s been looking forward to growing as an athlete in the coming years of post-secondary.
“I’m excited to go. I know I definitely won’t be the fastest, but just being able to watch my improvement and watch my times go down [as] I’m getting faster. I think with all the extra coaching it should make me improve substantially.”
Lopez adds he’s been focusing on the mental aspect of the sport as well, keeping on pushing through COVID-19 challenges on his training, along with a smaller community for his sport in Lloydminster.
“It’s been really, really tricky, just because I’m the only person that’s really rowing out of Lloydminster right now, because the other Lloydminster rower Shelby Lane, she’s rowing out of Saskatoon, so I’m all by myself. It’s really just needing to find my own motivation and being able to sit on the rowing machine for an hour, hour and a half every day, and really get to it.”
Currently, Lopez is using the training plan of the Saskatoon Rowing Club to continue training, before heading off to the post-secondary level.