Olympic rowing bronze medalist Eve Stewart thanks Iowa for giving her a chance

PARIS — The first Hawkeye to appear in the Olympic Games as a rower has a message she wants to deliver to the current Iowa team.

“It’s a cliché, but don’t hold yourself back,” said Eve Stewart, a 2020 Iowa graduate who was part of Great Britain’s coxed eight boat. “If you have a dream, whatever it is, just go out and do it, because I’ve made probably every mistake there is to make in rowing. And yet here I am.”

She flew out of Paris on Monday with a bronze medal in hand.

After helping Iowa qualify for three straight NCAA Championships — including placing ninth as part of the Iowa eights in 2019, a program best — Stewart continued her rowing journey internationally. Born in the Netherlands, but a dual-citizen because her mom is British, she competed for the Dutch until 2022. Then she made the switch to Team GB for a fresh start and to pursue a lifelong ambition of rowing for that nation.

It was a decision that paid off when — after an intensive, five-month selection process — she was chosen to occupy seat No. 6 in the eights. After winning a silver medal at the 2024 European Rowing Championships in late April, her crew had high expectations for Paris.

They won their heat over the Australians and Canadians on July 29, getting them straight through to the final on Aug. 3. There, they finished behind Romania and Canada, to take bronze.

“In all honesty, I don’t actually remember that much about the race,” said the 26-year-old, who studied English and creative writing at Iowa. “I remember our coxen at one point saying we had 900 meters left, and it’s a now-or-never type of thing. But it is all a bit of a blur.”

She explained that having five days between the heat and final is “a long time to keep your head in it with an intense level of focus,” and that may have contributed to not getting a gold or silver.

“But as a crew, I’m just so proud of the way that we approached this entire season and this Olympic period,” she said. “So, I’m definitely coming home happy. Sure, we came for the gold, that’s how athletes are wired, but I am really proud of the bronze medal.”

Most important, she said, was how amazing the entire Olympic experience was, going far beyond the competition itself and the rowing venue.

“It’s hard to put this entire experience into words,” said Stewart, who started rowing in high school in 2015 after spending her childhood running track and field. “These have been some of the most incredible days of my life, more than living up to any sort of expectation or dream I had of it.

“The day after we arrived, we went to the British Embassy and met Her Royal Highness, and had an amazing time there. So much has happened. I've journaled every single day to try and keep track of all the memories. It’s just been a massive whirlwind.”

The support she has received from Iowa, she said, also is a big part of why the experience has been so special.

“I had old professors reaching out, old classmates, old teammates, Iowa rowing alumni who I had never even met before. It has all be just so touching,” she said. “I have spent almost every day for the past eight years sitting in a rowing boat and rowing it along. I love doing it, but most of the time, I just do that with myself and my teammates. But for it (the Olympics) to open up such a wide audience, it blew me away.”

She also said she would never have made it to the Olympics without first being given a chance at Iowa.

“Just a massive thank you to the program. I hadn’t been rowing very long when I went there,” she said. “The coaches saw something in me. I was 17 years old and pretty bad at rowing at the time, to be honest, but they gave me the opportunity to get that D1-athlete lifestyle. I’d never seen anything like it before.”

She had only been rowing in a club of five people before coming to Iowa.

“Going to a place with 60-odd women training together, battling it out every day, to be exposed to that level of competitiveness, and teamwork and care for each other, was really beneficial I think and not dissimilar to the environment that I’ve been in the British rowing team now at the highest level,” Stewart said.

When she gets back on home soil, she’ll take some time off and eventually return to Henley-on-Thames, about a 45-minute drive outside of London, where the British rowers are based and funded through the country’s national lottery, so they can function as professional athletes.

She’ll then begin training for the 2025 world championships, which are in China next September. After that, she’ll decide whether or not she wants to keep going in the sport, and if she wants to commit to another Olympic appearance in Los Angeles in 2028.

“We train three times a day, six days a week, every week of the year. It is really intense,” she said. “You miss all the weddings and family birthday parties and funerals. Anything and everything you normally do you have to say no to them. So, we’ll see.”