Water Meets Will: The Radical Resilience of Jessica Thoennes

The course of Olympic rower Jessica Thoennes’ life has been dramatically altered by her dedication to a single, radical thought: just keep trying. 

As a high school senior and self-described “varsity benchwarmer” in volleyball and basketball, she accepted a spot at the University of Washington, unsure if she could adjust to the dark and rainy weather. But she asked herself: “What’s one year of my life?” 

She walked onto the rowing team, having never tried the sport. In hindsight, she says she was a bull in a china shop, not really in control of her body – a liability in a sport that emphasizes body control, precision, and timing. But even now, she can remember her first strokes, and thinking, “This must be what flying is like.” She was hooked.

Thoennes spent her freshman year chipping away at rowing, then eked out a spot on the varsity team as a sophomore. But underneath the surfaceshe was battling rampant, untreated depression. 

All of her stressors converged and she felt defeated, so tired that she couldn’t do anything but sleep. She forgot what happy felt like. 

And then, in her despair, she attempted suicide. 

Two thoughts that appeared mid-action saved her life that day: “My dog will never understand why I didn’t come home,” she recalled. 

The second thought was of her team: If she died, her boat wouldn’t get to go out to practice. 

Thoennes called the school psychologist and asked to be seen right away. And she still made it to practice that day.

A teammate, seeing that Thoennes was struggling, waited until they were the only ones on the dock and gave her a hug. 

“That was the day I decided that no matter what happened with rowing, I needed to stay a part of that team, because I was part of something so much bigger than myself that I didn’t have the capacity to understand what it could become,” Thoennes recalled.

Medication helped to treat her depression, and with newfound energy, her career took off. She won gold in the varsity eight at the 2017 and 2018 NCAA Women’s Rowing Championships, then earned an invitation to the national training center in Princeton, New Jersey. At the time, the Tokyo Olympics were still two years away. 

Again came the thought: just keep trying. 

Thoennes did, and she earned a spot on her first Olympic team. 

Tokyo brought its own challenges. The U.S. women’s eight, one of the most dominant dynasties in modern sports history, finished fourth. Thoennes was devastated. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee provided a therapist, someone Thoennes relies on to this day. But the bumps continued. 

Prior to the Paris Olympics, she was cut from the team. The hit to her confidence was brutal.

“I cried for two days,” she said. “I got cut on a Friday. I woke up on Sunday and I said, ‘If my career ends like this, I’m not OK with that. I want to end this on my terms, no matter what.” 

Thoennes made the team in pair, and she and Azja Czajkowski finished fourth in the Paris Olympics, just out of medal range. What followed was a different challenge from Tokyo: instead of depression, she was overwhelmed by anxiety. She took six months off, cold turkey, and thought about her next steps. 

… Get Up Eight

For the first time since 2019, Thoennes did not travel with the team. She thought about all the sacrifices her sport has demanded: Weddings missed. Funerals. The death of her grandfather, who was her biggest fan. And she decided that she was not done. 

In 2025, she medaled at the World Rowing Championship in Shanghai, coming in third in the women’s pair event. Now she’s back home, training, pushing her limits, knowing other rowers are doing the same. She’s up at 5 a.m. every day, at the boat house by 6, then on the water for hours before leaving for her day job. Another round of training follows later in the day. 

When she trains, Thoennes uses Goal Five Go Again Leggings and the Mesh It To Me Tank for running and lifting adding the Foudy ½ Zip when the weather turns cool.

“What impressed me most was the comfort, practicality, and zero chafe – an extremely hard thing to avoid in rowing,” she said. “I love that it was started by women for women and girls in athletics.”

More importantly, Thoennes is aligned with the brand’s dedication to changing lives, one girl at a time: “That is something I want to be a part of and potentially inspire,” she said.

Her dream is to make the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and medal, a tangible symbol of all she has poured into the sport.

“I have 700 days left of an elite rowing career,” she said. “So many small choices I have made have led me to such incredible destinations. 

“I have failed more times than I will ever remember – life, rowing, work. But there is just this innate part of me that believes there is something more and better, and it’s worth pursuing because it sparks something within you: possibility. You are one small choice away from something incredible.”