Growing up in Belleville, Wisconsin, a small town southwest of Madison, Lauren O'Connor never thought about rowing.
"My Dad always likes to make this joke about how, oh, you started rowing. You rode a canoe down the Sugar River, whatever," USA Olympic Rower Lauren O'Connor says. "And I'm like, I never even did that. I never did that when I was a child. I had a lot of friends that did it. And I, never even crossed my mind."
But now the former Badgers rower feels her slow start in the sport, and walking on at Wisconsin is paying off with an Olympic berth.
"There's just a culture, especially with bringing in walk-ons," O'Connor says. "You're bringing people who are new to the team. And rowing is a really hard sport. And so, honestly, I think it can be really helpful to start it a little bit later in life."
Watch: From walk-on to Olympian: O'Connor is another Badgers rowing success story
Her background growing up included 4-H, martial arts, musicals singing, and dancing, which might have the closest connection to what she's doing.
"I think having a sense of rhythm, to be able to like feel that in a boat is very helpful," O'Connor says. "So I guess technically that would be a correlation between the two of them."
Lance Allan asked O'Connor if she ever sings in the boat.
"No!" O'Connor says with a laugh. "Unless I'm singing in my head. Or alone."
For O'Connor, she tries to dispel misconceptions of the sport.
"I think that's something that a lot of people confuse, is you know, you think rowing? You immediately think upper body," O'Connor says. "But realistically? It's, I would say 70 percent of it happens in our legs and core because our seat actually moves in the boat. Being able to go to a place of pain and not stop."
O'Connor says the US is the only team and country to qualify all women's boats for the Olympics, so she hopes more stories and attention will be on them in Paris.
