Growing up on opposite sides of Italy, Valentina Iseppi and Carmela Pappalardo had similar experiences trying rowing for the first time at age 10: They hated it. “I was so scared,” Iseppi said. “I took maybe one stroke, turned around and went back in. I said, ‘I’m never going to row ever again. It is so bad.'”

Said Pappalardo: “I was really scared, saying, ‘I don’t want to do it.’ I was so scared of flipping in the water.” From those humble beginnings in the sport, they somehow became two of their country’s top rowers — Iseppi placed fourth in the 2021 Olympics in the quad — and made their way to the University of Washington together.