TASMANIAN rower Meaghan Volker admits it’s an emotional roller-coaster to be waiting to hear whether she is about to go to the Rio Olympics or home to Hobart.
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The Buckingham 26-year-old is a member of the women’s coxed eight which is waiting to learn whether it will be offered Russia’s spot at the Games.
Rowing’s international governing body FISA is set to decide whether to allow the Russian crew, which includes at least one member with previous doping convictions (Anastasia Karabelshchikova received a two-year ban for drug offences in 2008), to compete next month.
If the crew is banned, Australia could claim the vacant spot having finished third in the Swiss regatta in May from which the top two crews qualified.
“We’re all waiting on tenterhooks to find out what’s going to happen,” Volker said from Melbourne where the crew reconvened at the weekend.
“We are just taking it hour by hour, day by day, trying to prepare for both scenarios and trying to keep a level head.
“If we are going, I know what happens next, and if we are not going, I know what happens next.
“It’s out of our hands which takes the stress off a bit. Rowing Australia are supporting us and now it’s up to FISA.”
Volker, who attended Holy Rosary School in Claremont then Friends School before deferring university to focus on rowing, admitted FISA is faced with a difficult call after the International Olympic Committee left it up to individual sports' federations to ban Russian competitors.
She said the Australian crew, which also features five Victorians, two South Australians and a Western Australian, has swiftly gelled back together.
“When we first heard that this opportunity was there and Rowing Australia were going to support us to try and get to the Olympics we were all a bit scattered.
“We all wondered how it was going to be organised and what was going to happen.
“But then we decided we’d got to get back together so we did that on Saturday and had our first row again on Sunday and it was pretty good. I think we are as ready as we can be to go.
“We have a good feel for each other even though we have not been together for a while now.
“It’s a slightly different training process but we are just trying to get the maximum out of every stroke.”
Like fellow Tasmanian Kerry Hore’s quad scull competition, there are only seven women’s eight crews due to compete in Rio, meaning no semi-final and just one crew eliminated in the repechage.