2024 Paralympics
Follow Todd’s Journey
2024 has been a long and amazing year and it’s not even fall yet!
2024 started with Selection Camp to pick the rowers to represent the US at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. Six men and five women were invited to compete for 3 seats for each gender. The camp was three weeks of hard rowing under the eyes of the national team coaches. When it was all done I successfully earned a seat in the PR3 mixed gender double scull (PR3 Mix 2x) with my partner Saige Harper.
I returned to Portland and trained very hard in preparation for the games. I trained as much as I ever have with a typical week consisting of 3-4 hours a day of rowing, weight training, cardio and other activities, 6 days a week.
I survived the training and in late May moved to Boston to meet up with Saige and train in Boston until the Paralympcs. In mid-June we traveled to Poznan, Poland to race at the World Rowing Cup 3 event to get some racing under our belts. We finished in 4th and were happy with our effort. We then returned to Boston for another month and a half of hard rowing.
We arrived in Paris on August 22nd, about a week before our preliminary heat. Paris and everything surrounding the Paralympics was amazing. Approximately 4000 athletes in the Olympic Village, plus coaches and medical staff. China had the largest team with over 500 athletes, with the US having 255 athletes. The dining hall was great, tons of free, tasty food everywhere, including the famous double-chocolate muffins.
Racing was intense and exciting. We did our best and gave it everything we had and finished in 7th place overall, winning the B Final. We had hoped for a higher finishing position, but we’re happy with our effort.
I’m back home now relaxing and recuperating after a long year of training and racing. My rowing future is unknown at this point whether I’ll continue to train and race at the elite level. I will be racing at the Head of the Charles in late October as that’s one of my favorite rowing events. Stay tuned to see what the future has in store!
Hi, I’m a Paralympic Rower with Parkison’s Disease. I represented the US this past summer at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris, France. It was a experience of a lifetime.
- Todd Vogt
Belgrade, Serbia 2023
This past summer I represented the US in the PR3 mixed double sculls event (PR3 mix 2x) at the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, alongside my partner, Gemma Wollenschlager. It was a wild and fun adventure. Our training camp in Boston, Massachusetts, was brutal with many hard days. I was happy to survive the last couple weeks in one piece and felt ready to take on the world.
We arrived in Belgrade a week prior to our preliminary heats to acclimate to conditions. Unfortunately I picked up a bad cold on the flight to Europe. This made the first week in Belgrade a struggle while training on the racecourse and by the time our preliminary heat started I was feeling slightly better. For our heat, only the first place crew would directly advance to the final on Friday. We finished in 3rd in the heat with a solid time and would have to race in the repechage on Wednesday. We won our repechage comfortably on Wednesday, and would be racing for medals in the final on Friday. Luckily by Friday, I was feeling good and was ready for the big race. The times for all the crews in our event were very close and we expected a tough race. The conditions were challenging for the final with gusty winds and rougher water, but we were prepared for this, as training on the Charles River in Boston was often windy and choppy.
At the beginning of the race all the crews were tightly bunched together. At 500 meters into the race Australia was in the lead, Germany was second with us right behind them in 3rd. We started to push hard and moved into second place and were moving on the Australia boat. I was a little surprised at how well we were doing and was expecting a big move from the trailing crews. At the halfway point of the race we continued to move away from the boats behind us and were still reeling in Australia. At the 1500 meter mark and with only 500m to go, Australia started to move away. France had now moved into 3rd place, but were quite a ways behind us. My focus at this point was to keep my rowing clean to avoid mistakes. We finished in 2nd and I was both elated and exhausted. Being on the medal stand in front of teammates and relatives was amazing.
I had a fantastic partner in Gemma Wollenshclager, as she’s one of the best female para rowers in the world.
Racice, Czech Republic 2022
During the summer of 2022 I raced at the World Rowing Championships in Racice, Czech Republic in the PR3 mixed double sculls event (PR3 Mixed 2x) with my partner, Pearl Outlaw. We trained here at home in Portland, Oregon, starting in mid-March. We trained hard all spring and summer here at my home club, Portland Boat Club and the training went well with Pearl and our Coach, Susan Wood.
We left for the Czech Republic in late August with a week to acclimate and to train on the racecourse. We stayed in Prague, which was a beautiful city to see. In our preliminary heat we finished in 4th place and were excited to race for medals in a few days in the final. We ultimately finished in 5th place in a good race. Although we were both disappointed with the outcome, as we both were hoping for medals, we felt we raced the hardest and best we could.
