Gevvie Stone has promised herself that the next phase of her life begins on Aug. 27 when she returns to Tufts Medical School for her third-year residency.
That gives her about six more weeks to immerse herself in the dream of nearly every young athlete in America as the Newton rower represents the United States in the 2012 London Summer Games.
For the past decade, Stone has done her best to alternate between the two spectacular parts of her life. She won an NCAA championship while a student at Princeton University and then moved back to the Boston area to begin medical school while she trained daily on the Charles River.
It was a workload and time-management puzzle that would have crushed many a twenty-something who lacked the focus and discipline of someone like Stone. But it was one she felt she managed well in all but a few of the most extreme cases.
The one time that was really tricky was the spring of my second year when I was studying for board exams, she said. At the same time, I had won the National Selection Regatta, so I was already defined as the U.S. single scull for the World Cup. So I felt more pressure on myself to train more seriously because I wanted to perform at the World Cup, while at the same time I was supposed to be spending 12 hours a day in the library studying for my board exams.
That was the only time where I was full-time training and full-time studying, and I was probably not at 100 percent for either. I probably didnt get anywhere near enough sleep.
Once Stone got through her boards June 15, 2010, she remembers - she knew the better part of the next two years would be dedicated to rowing as she attempted to follow in the footsteps of her mother, Lisa, who rowed in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and her father and coach, Gregg, who was likely headed to the 1980 Moscow Games until the U.S. boycott.
It was tremendous challenge of training on the water and in the weight room that saw its share of achievements and its share of setbacks. It all came down this spring when she competed in the single sculls at the 2012 Non-Qualified Small Boat Olympic Trials and won. That earned her a spot at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta where she would need to finish top four to make the Olympic team in the only window of opportunity her school and impending medical career would likely allow.
She finished third. She was going to London.
She was fulfilling that dream she said every little girl athlete has at one moment of her life.
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Newton rower Gevvie Stone on her way to London Olympics
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