Living the dream
Sanita Puspure will be Ireland’s sole representative at the 2012
Olympic Rowing Regatta, having secured the last qualification spot
available in the women’s single sculls at the Final Olympic
Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Switzerland.
The road to reach this point was a challenging one
for Puspure, as it was for all her competitors, but
now that she has qualified she couldn’t be happier:
“I didn’t really believe in myself until the end,” she
says. “There were a few doubts and ‘what ifs’
along the way, but I think the fact that I wanted
it so much helped me battle them!”
Having first attempted to qualify the women’s
double sculls for the Olympics at the 2011 World
Rowing Championships, Puspure subsequently
moved to the single. “The single is a big challenge
that I knew I would have to take on at some stage
in my career,” she says, “and I’m really happy I did
it this year. It all just worked out.”
was capable of achieving
more than she already
had in the sport, she
began to row again in
2008. With the help of
coach Philip O’Keeffe,
Puspure moved to a
new level in terms of performance and set her
sights on new challenges. She joined the Irish
national team programme in 2010 and gained
Irish citizenship in 2011.
Ireland’s Sanita Puspure
celebrates her qualification
for London with her family
in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Puspure is not a novice in the single. She
competed in this boat class at international junior
and under- 23 level under the Latvian flag, winning
a world under- 23 bronze in 2003. She is now the
first woman to represent Ireland at the Olympics
since Frances Cryan finished seventh in the same
event at the Moscow Games in 1980.
The Final Olympic Qualification Regatta is an
experience that places athletes under extreme
pressure. It was the waiting time between races
that Puspure found intolerable. Being alone
with one’s thoughts turns such a regatta into a
gruelling ordeal. But Puspure triumphed mentally
and physically, putting in a fast finishing sprint to
deny her Serbian and Latvian challengers of the
fourth of four Olympic qualification spots.
three of them were there to greet her. What does
her qualifying for the Olympic Games mean to
them? “Kaspar is really proud of me, that’s what
he keeps saying.” And her children? “I don’t think
they have really realised what is going on. All they
want are new toys!”
Sanita puts down determination, hard work
and having a dream as what has led her to this
achievement. She is living her Olympic dream
now that she knows she will line up at the start
at Eton Dorney this summer. But Puspure may
not be done dreaming just yet: “Maybe I will have
another Olympic dream in a few weeks from now,
when I wake up from this one!”
In 2006, Puspure moved to Ireland with her
husband Kaspar. Inspired by a feeling that she
There is more to Puspure’s life than just rowing.
Whilst not on the water her husband and two
children occupy the centre stage. When she got
off the water after racing the final in Lucerne all
