MADISON, Wis. – Nearly a thousand miles from her hometown of Belleville, Wisconsin, former Badger rower Lauren O'Connor lives and trains with ARION Rowing Club in Saratoga Springs, New York. From there, it's just under 7,400 miles to Shanghai, China, the site of the 2025 World Rowing Championships, where O'Connor will spend part of this coming September competing against the world's best.
 
A 2024 U.S. Olympian, O'Connor earned the opportunity when she won the women's single sculls at the recent Senior and Para World Rowing Championships Trials that wrapped up Aug. 3 on Mercer Lake in West Windsor, New Jersey.
 
O'Connor began her racing with a second-place finish in the Aug. 1 time trial, won her semifinal race the next day, then finished over five seconds ahead of second place to win the final in a time of 7:31.29 over 2000 meters.
 
"It's always great to race with other people because they push you, but I think mentally I was very much just in my own space," O'Connor said. "I spent a lot of time focusing on my mental prep and how I wanted to execute my race. I needed to hit 95 percent of the competitive standard time in order to be funded to go to worlds and so I think the way that I went through my races was exactly what I wanted for those days."
 
O'Connor will see a pair of familiar Badger faces at the world championships when Grace Joyce and Madison native Isa Darvin also make the trip to China. While O'Connor and Joyce rowed together last summer at the Paris Olympics in the quadruple sculls, this time Darvin and Joyce will pair up as Team USA's double sculls.
 
After an Olympic year, some rowers retire, some take a year of rest, while others keep their training going full steam ahead. There's also an influx of new athletes and new ideas surrounding the national team program. For O'Connor, it's the work that changed.
 
"My training looked a lot different - I was dealing with a lot of medical issues this spring and so it was really a bit of a rocky start to the year," O'Connor explained. "I went through a lot of different camps, rowed in a lot of different boats, and so I think getting to this point was a little bit all over the place. But I think it's where I wanted to be anyways so I'm really glad that I got the opportunity to race in the single."
 
FROM WISCONSIN TO THE WORLD
The 2020 Wisconsin graduate began rowing in college after playing volleyball and competing in track at Belleville High School. She progressed from the second novice eight boat as a frosh to the second varsity four as a sophomore and then earned a spot in UW's varsity eight that raced at NCAAs as a junior. Unfortunately, her senior season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
"I only started rowing when I was in college and I felt like there was a lot more potential for me to unlock and I think it's always been a fun little challenge for myself within rowing of wondering 'how far can I push myself?," O'Connor explained about continuing her rowing career after graduation.
 
O'Connor graduated in December 2020 and stayed involved as a Badger volunteer assistant coach through the spring of 2021. A sweep rower in college like the rest of the NCAA, she got a taste of the "different energy" of sculling from her time at a U23 camp and spent her summer looking for a place to begin elite training that fall, which ended up in New York with her current coach Eric Catalano at ARION. While there, she was competing in races within the U.S. on a potential path to make the U.S. national team. She finished second in the summer of 2022 at singles trials, just outside the selection camps' group. She stepped up training that fall and it paid off with her first U.S. national team appearance in 2023.
 
"I had the opportunity to do it and I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a couple years, see what happens and it just kind of kept going from there. It's been a really cool experience to get to keep pushing myself and keep reaching new heights." 
 
LEAD UP TO WORLDS
"I'm back in Saratoga Springs and will be here training with my club coach for the next three weeks and then I'll go and I'll join the rest of the team in Chula Vista in California for one week and then we'll fly out to Shanghai. There's a week of training in Shanghai and then racing."
 
O'Connor's prior international racing experiences include racing in the quadruple sculls at both the 2023 World Rowing Championships and the 2024 Olympics. This 2025 World Rowing Championships mark her first foray in the single sculls.
 
"In the single you really have to be on for every race and there's typically four rounds of racing in this event, so I think really focusing on the fitness that I have and gaining even more and just being ready to max out in every single race is important." 
 
I haven't been to China. I'm looking forward to it. I think it will be very, very cool.