From the Otonabee River to the Bays of Tokyo: Former Trent Excalibur rowing member, Trevor Jones, races his way to the 2020 Olympic Games

Trevor Jones qualifies for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Lucerne, Switzerland on May 16, 2021. Photo credits: Rowing Canada Aviron/Merijn Soeters.

Hitting the waters with the Peterborough Rowing Club to competing as an Excalibur for three seasons, Trevor Jones is a 2x U23 World Champion and has qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.  

From hitting the water on the Otonabee River to competing on the big international stage, Trevor Jones is headed to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games after finishing second at the World Rowing Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland on Sunday.

"It's pretty big," Mr. Jones said. "It's been a long journey and it's a year late but to go through on my first [quadrennial] and to have qualified for the Olympics, it's something that I'm really happy with and really proud to have accomplished."

Currently with the Peterborough Rowing Club and a member of the Trent Excalibur men's rowing team through the 2015-16 to 2017-18 seasons, Mr. Jones has taken his career in rowing a step at a time, describing his journey as checking off the things that need to be done to reach his goals.

A two-time U23 World Rowing champion, Mr. Jones has been a member of the Canadian National Team since 2017 and took lessons from each stage of his career to get to his Olympic qualification this past weekend.

Trevor Jones will be one of the younger rowers

"It's been fun, just checking off the boxes along the way, slowly progressing and making sure I'm moving forward," explains Mr. Jones, who at 23 years old, is one of the younger rowers in the single sculls. "This has always been that end goal for the past six years now, so it's been about making sure that everything I do is working towards this Olympic berth."

Competing in rowing since 2011, Mr. Jones says that the realization of his abilities on the water happened in his senior year at Lakefield College School, when he first tried out for the Canadian Junior team.

Since then, he's been working on the pathway to success. Trevor joined the Trent Excalibur in 2015, training with Carol Love (Rowing Canada NextGen Coach and Athlete Mentor, '76 Olympian) and Terry Paul ('88 and '92 Olympian and gold medallist), competing for Canada, and now training with coaches Dick Tonks and Jeremy Ivey full-time with Team Canada in British Columbia. Now, Coach Love and the people around him are excited and relieved to see him achieve his goals.

Realizing a dream

"He's on his path and realized a dream that's been on the back of his mind for a long time," said Ms. Love, who first met Mr. Jones at 15 years-old during the Row to the Podium evaluation in Peterborough. "He had all the physical traits, tall, athletic, and had a good aerobic engine that he developed with the Peterborough Rowing Club as a young rower. He's an incredibly hard worker in a difficult sport. There are many other sports with easier pathways to the top."

Ms. Love added, "He has a maturity and the ability to be able to survive a lot of work, the hours that need to be put into it, and be able to continue to advance."

As a Trent Excalibur rower for a total of three seasons, Mr. Jones still remembers the experiences he had with his teammates.

"Competing with the Excalibur, it was a fun way to get some races in," Mr. Jones recalls. "It kept me motivated to keep on training in the fall. The more racing I could do, the better, being able to race against people who I rowed with internationally during the summer, and compete again them in the fall was always fun."

With the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games less than 70 days away, Mr. Jones will return to Vancouver to regroup and train before heading out with the full Canadian rowing team next month.

Learn more about opportunities to compete with the Trent Excalibur.