Top Story — April: Rowing toward Rio

Hunter Leeming didn’t set out to be single. 

The 22-year-old Sarasota native spent three months looking for the perfect partner — someone whose personality mirrored his own. 

After exhausting all of his options, Leeming realized it simply wasn’t meant to be. He was going to be a singles rower — at least for the time being. 

In January 2016, Leeming began training with the goal of competing in the men’s single sculls at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Rowing Team Trials April 21 through April 24, at Nathan Benderson Park. 

Leeming, a 2011 graduate of Riverview High and former Sarasota Crew rower, will compete in a time trial April 21, with the top 14 advancing to heat races April 22. There are 20 rowers entered in the men’s single sculls. 

Unlike other Olympic Trial events, the U.S. Olympic Rowing Team Trials is an open trial, meaning anyone can compete. While Leeming realizes he probably isn’t the favorite to win the event, he doesn’t really know where he stands. 

“I can’t not try, especially since it’s here,” Leeming said. “I think if I didn’t try, it would bother me for the rest of my life.”

For Leeming, the biggest challenge isn't the competitors rowing alongside him. Rather, it's the mental challenge of knowing that he's all alone on the water.  

"On the best day, rowing the single is a challenging solitary pursuit, and on the worst day, it is lonely and frustrating," Leeming's coach, Liza Dickson, said. 

Leeming returned to Sarasota about a month ago and has been training at Nathan Benderson Park practically every day since. 

This week won’t be the first time Leeming has raced the world-renowned course. Leeming won state championships in both the men’s single and men’s varsity eight during his senior year of high school. 

“It definitely feels like my rowing has come full circle,” Leeming said. “It’s fun to be back. I have a 100% victory rate here.” 

The winner of the men’s single sculls will move on to an Olympic qualifier in May. Because the United States hasn’t qualified for the Olympics in the men’s single sculls, the winner of the U.S. Olympic Rowing Team Trials will need to finish in the top three to go to the 2016 Olympics, in Rio de Janiero. 

For Leeming, this week’s trials are an opportunity to compete at a high level and prepare for the 2020 Olympics.

"It's sort of like punching a ticket on an element of an Olympic dream," Leeming's father, John Leeming, said. "This is the first event where it's all about the Olympics, and it happens to be here in Sarasota, where his whole rowing career started. He was one of the first kids around the lake clipping weeds and part of the first state championship that was held here, and now to be able to watch him continue his journey is just awesome." 

The 2016 U.S. Olympic Rowing Team Trials will mark Leeming’s first senior qualifying event.

He began rowing when he was 13, as an eighth-grader at Pine View School. With no high school sports at Pine View, Leeming opted to give rowing a try with Sarasota Crew.

He began rowing twice a week, but by the time he got to high school, he was ready for more. 

“It was a really good fit for my personality,” Leeming said. “Rowers tend to be really awkward. Most rowers were athletes before, but they never really found a sport they enjoyed. It’s a place where misfits can fit in.” 

At 5-foot-5 and 125 pounds, Leeming spent the better part of his freshman year as a coxswain. 

After watching Leeming take his first strokes, Crew coach Casey Galvanek wasn't quite sure he was rowing material. 

"I continue to joke with him about how, if we made cuts, he would have been the first to go," Galvanek said. 

It wasn’t until the end of his sophomore year in high school, after he grew an entire foot, that Leeming, now 6-foot-6, got a grasp on the sport. 

Following his junior season, Leeming represented the United States at the 2010 CanAmMex Regatta where he won the quadruple sculls. It was Leeming’s first experience with the national team. 

 It’s an unbelievable feeling when you realized you’re weren’t just selected to represent your city, but to represent your country," Leeming said. "Why would you not want to keep doing it and represent something so big?” 

Leeming went on to compete in the 2011 World Rowing Junior Championships, where he finished fifth in the men’s eight, and the 2013 and 2015 World Rowing Under 23 Championships, where he won a pair of silver medals in the men’s eight. 

“It was really exciting and a little frustrating,” Leeming said. “I think second and fourth are the worst places you can get, and I’ve gotten those places a lot unfortunately.” 

Leeming graduated from Brown University, where he rowed in the men’s eight for the Bears, in May 2015 with a degree in international relations and political economics. Leeming has aspirations of one day working for an intergovernmental organization or as an embassy advisor, but for now those plans are on hold.

“It’s a really long journey,” Leeming said. “It’s hard to have a life. There comes a point where you have to decide whether or not this is something you really want to pursue.”

Following the 2015 World Rowing Under 23 Championships last July, in Bulgaria, Leeming took two months off before moving to Oklahoma City last September to begin training with Dickson. 

Following the 2016 U.S. Olympic Rowing Trials, Leeming, who practices at least 12 times a week, will either return to Oklahoma City, where he moved last September to train with Dickson, who coached him at the Crew, or continue training in Sarasota. Leeming plans use this summer as preparation for the 2017 World Championships, which will be held in Sarasota next September. 

"There's nothing about this journey that's easy, and he still keeps slugging along without seemingly missing much of a beat," John Leeming said. "He just keeps pushing on. He's really learned to thrive in the adversity of the process and remain competitive and committed to trying to represent the U.S. on a global stage."