Veronica Wall in action on the waters of Lake Hood. Photo supplied.It was over before it had even begun.

Ashburton’s Veronica Wall had her rowing programme turned upside down when Covid-19 began to envelop the globe.

The 20-year-old Ivy League student was in the final week of Spring Break and had travelled to Tennessee for her first rowing meet of the season.

In a whirlwind few days she would soon find herself back on a plane to New Zealand, with her rowing season canned and schooling year left in a shroud of doubt.

The national rowing champion, who attends Yale University, has been in lockdown with her family in Mid Canterbury for the past six weeks.

“It all happened really fast,” she said.

“Over that (final week of Spring Break) there had been murmurings of other schools starting to close down and not let other students back after Spring Break and moving to online classes.

“The day we got to Tennessee we found that Yale had gone to online classes and they were advising all of the people who had left for campus for Spring Break shouldn’t come back.”

By March 12, The Ivy League had cancelled all spring sport due to concerns around Covid-19.

“By that stage, we had no reason to be at school anymore,” she said.

“It was pretty devastating.

“We had gone down for our first race of the season when it all got cancelled.”

This effectively meant months of training and preparation for Wall and her teammates had come to nothing.

“It sucks for all athletes in spring sport, especially with rowing because it’s a sport where you train all year round for.”

Wall was then left three days to pack up her things and leave campus after Yale issued an exit notice to remaining students.

“It was insane,” she said.

With the United States now representing the hotbed of the pandemic, Wall’s return to school remained unclear amid an ever-changing saga.

“I’ve been talking to some of the girls who are over in the States.

“I think it’s very mixed, because it’s a situation that continues to change all the time, the universities don’t really know where they stand on what’s going to happen when people come back to campus and when people are going to come back to campus.”

Further announcements are expected to be made by The Ivy League in July, Wall said.

“There’s every possibility that we might not be back when the fourth semester starts.

“It’s such a strange situation.”

Although it had been a long two months for the star rower, she has channelled her energies into her online classes, rowing machine workouts and weight training.

Rowing was permitted under Alert Level 3, although restrictions around shared equipment and facilities were still in place.

Wall has dozens of national rowing titles to her name and has been an integral part of New Zealand’s under-23 setup, however she had taken the year off from trialing for the under-23 squad.

She said she was somewhat lucky that no other noteworthy events had been impacted by Covid-19.

“I was kinda lucky in that respect that I had already decided I didn’t want to trial for the under-23 team.

“I just wanted to take a year out of international competition and have a break just to reset.”

All of Rowing New Zealand’s international events this year have been cancelled.

The 2024 Olympics in Paris was an aspiration for Wall, however as Covid-19 has taught her, life can throw up the occasional curveball.

“It would be nice to come back after my degree and go to the Olympics,” she said.

“That would be one of my long term goals.

“As this whole Covid business has shown, you can’t plan for everything.”

By Adam Burns © The Ashburton Guardian - 4 May 2020