My City August 2022

MYSPORTS

ey followed that success with a bronze medal at the 2018 World Championships. Tomek emerged from the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic, often having to train alone, with one more shot at Olympic glory. She was selected for Team USA’s quadruple sculls boat for the Tokyo Olympics along with O’Leary and Olympic rookies Alie Rusher and Cicely Madden. e foursome nished 10th. “Ellen’s international success is a testament to her dedication to training and the perseverance to continue working through any setbacks for a period of 16 years,” Rothstein says. “She worked hard to develop great top-end speed to really go hard and great aerobic capacity, so what Ellen achieved is no surprise to me. She is also a great person with great character who embraced the concept of working as a team right away.” ese days,Tomek is part of the team at VISA nan cial services, working as a risk and fraud concerns account manager. Away from the o—ce, she now keeps t on land through activities like mountain biking and hiking and is enjoying more time with girlfriend, Jennifer Lico. “I miss the racing, but not the day-to-day training of rowing which started to take a mental toll on me,” she says. “My new job of putting out res for people with concerns about their credit accounts is very satisfying. I’m just enjoying some things I have not had time for and loving this chapter of my life.” ®

PHOTO COURTESY OF USROWING

Tomek (left) and O’Leary captured the bronze medal at the 2018 World Championships.

world champions from New Zealand to snag the third and nal spot in the gold medal nal where they nished sixth. e pair’s greatest success came at the 2017 World Championships when they captured a silver medal, beating two of the teams that had nished ahead of them in the Olympic nal. No American pair had ever nished higher in the event in the World Championships and none had even won a medal in 27 years. Later in the year, while eating lunch at a Whole Foods store, Tomek received a call from someone at US Rowing and learned her female peers on the national team had voted her Female Athlete of the Year. “ at was an incredible and emotional moment because it’s an award you only receive through voting by others in the sport, which means everything to me,” she says. “I had actu ally missed about six months of actual rowing training from the start of that year with an elbow injury, but the World Championships were not until late September. It shows that you never know what can happen on any given day.”

Tomek & O’Leary check their time at the 2016 Olympic games.

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