CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Following a solid performance in the rowing team’s season-opening regatta at the Oak Ridge Cardinal Invitational, junior Jane Elsner and her teammates are looking to continue making their mark.

All three of the Hurricanes’ varsity eight crews secured wins on the final day of racing, with Elsner and the 2V8 boat finishing with a time of 6:41.2 to beat Notre Dame, then-No. 25 Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.

“Winning that first race was a huge confidence boost, because it shows we’re capable of doing what we planned on doing,” Elsner said. “Now it’s just about sticking to what we’ve been doing and seeing what we can improve on.”

Hailing from Speyer, Germany, the junior rower first got involved with the sport at the age of 13 after some encouragement from her father.

And while she was initially hesitant to pursue the sport because there weren’t many girls her age at her local rowing club, Elsner gave rowing another try after attending a program designed to support girls and women in the sport.“I stuck and stayed and eventually found my best friends,” Elsner said.

After finding success with rowing in Germany, Elsner arrived at Miami in 2023 and made her presence felt immediately as a freshman, helping the Hurricanes win the Sunshine State Invite in 2024 and later that season, set what was then a new program record with a mark of 6:23.9 in the first varsity eight grand final at the ACC Championships.

Elsner credits the friendly atmosphere of Miami as a major factor for her early success.

“What surprised me the most was the amount of support around student-athletes,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much I would be encouraged to be the best version of myself…I found my love for rowing again here.”

After tying a program-high with fifth place finishes at both the 2024 and 2025 ACC Championships under head coach James Mulcahy, the Hurricanes recently achieved the No. 18 spot in the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA) Coaches Poll.

Beyond leading his team to new levels of success, Mulcahy has made it a priority to support the Hurricanes on and off the water, and that, Elsner said, has helped Miami’s rowers excel.

“Coach James is amazing…he cares about us so much,” she said. “His intention is to get the best out of us athletically and personally.”

Mulcahy and his team start their training well before the racing season begins, putting in work during the fall to ensure they are ready to go compete in the spring.

The mental preparation is a key element of Mulcahy’s philosophy as well.

“We do a lot of base work to build up our fitness for the races,” Elsner said. “It’s very much a mental game and you have to keep putting in effort without losing sight of what you’re doing it for.”

Added Mulcahy, “You have to derive a deep sense of satisfaction in rowing, so it doesn’t become a struggle…Eventually it becomes like meditation and actually benefits you mentally where you feel yourself becoming a better version of yourself every day.”

Despite her success at Miami, Elsner is no stranger to adversity, overcoming a shoulder injury last year that left her restricted to training on a stationary bike.

During this difficult time in her career, Elsner found comfort and solace in her teammates, who she said always, “made sure to check in on [her] and gave [her] a reason to keep going.”

Thanks to a combination of resilience, determination, and help from her teammates, Elsner was soon able to return to full rowing activities, but a question still remained as to how badly the surgery would affect her performance.

Elsner answered that question by coming back even stronger than before.

“She rewrote her story and redefined what it’s possible to do coming [back] from injury,” Mulcahy said. “This is one of the toughest developments an athlete can face, and she passed that test with flying colors.”

While Elsner’s recovery is certainly one of her most impressive accomplishments during her rowing career, what perhaps defines her character to an even greater extent is the positive impact she has on her teammates.

“She always has a positive attitude,” Mulcahy said. “She’s amongst the first to cheer on her teammates and when she comes by the office for video review, she brings teammates along with her. … She has a great team-first personality.”

Along with navigating the recovery from her injury, Elsner has also had to work to find a sense of consistency while balancing the demands of her sport and the challenging classes she’s taking while studying microbiology and immunology at Miami.

“I had to figure stuff out because it is a big ask,” Elsner said. “Your alarm goes off at 4:30 in the morning and it’s hard but you really have to stick to that schedule…I bought a planner and wrote down everything I had to.”

Consistency is an integral part of rowing not only because of the immense amount of practice it requires, but also because the sport inherently demands its participants to make the same movements over and over again.

“What’s so critical about rowing is that ability to have a daily process… you have to take things one stroke at a time and stay in the present moment,” Mulcahy said.

As focused as she and the rest of her team are on the present, Elsner still has big goals for the future.

“I always want to stay in the top 16 and get back into the 1V8 [boat],” she said. “[Coach Mulcahy] has brought in champions and so many aspiring athletes, so the program is just getting better and better.”

Beyond her personal goals and how determined she is to improve on her individual skills, what Elsner is looking forward to most this season is seeing what the team can achieve as a group.

“I want to see what we can do and how far we can push, and what we’re capable of,” Elsner said. “I’m excited to do it all with all the girls I’ve been doing it with.”

She and the Hurricanes will have their next chance to compete this weekend, when Miami heads to the Sarasota 2K Invitational. Racing begins Friday and continues through Saturday.