Burdett rower Olivia Coffey focused on gold in Paris Olympics after Tokyo disappointment

A disappointing fourth-place finish at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics still stings for Burdett's Olivia Coffey . She is hoping her team's new training regimen, an experienced boat and her efforts will help produce gold in the women's eight next week at the Paris Olympics.

Coffey, 35, and eight teammates (seven other rowers plus the coxswain) begin their redemption bid at approximately 6 a.m. Eastern Time Monday with a heat race at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium. The top finisher in each of the two heats advances to the Aug. 3 final while the five remaining boats battle Aug. 1 in the repechage for four available spots in the medal race.

There was a tim e Coffey was unsur e she would compete again after Tokyo . Now she is "super excited" for the Paris Games as she competes in her second Olympics and participates in her third. Coffey was an alternate in Rio in 2016, when the U.S. captured a third consecutive gold medal in the women's eight.

Winning is the objective.

"I think if you go into the race not with the goal of winning, then you don't even stand a chance of getting a medal," Coffey said. "To get off the line first, to get up early, to keep pushing for more margin on all the other crews, and to cross the line first."

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IC grad Musnicki among Coffey's boatmates

Coffey, who attended Watkins Glen High School before graduating from Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts, will be joined in the eight by 2005 Ithaca College graduate Meghan Musnicki, a native of Naples in Ontario County who at 41 is the oldest member of the group.

Coffey, Musnicki, Long Island native Charlotte Buck and Regina Salmons competed in the eight in Tokyo. The rest of this year's boat includes coxswain Cristina Castagna, Molly Bruggeman, Margaret Hedeman, Claire Collins and Madeleine Wanamaker. Collins and Wanamaker competed in the four at the Tokyo Olympics.

The American team finished third in a World Cup event in May in Lucerne, Switzerland, its only competition this year. Coffey said it was a disappointing result, but they won the race for lanes and showed their overall potential at the regatta.

Last year the U.S. earned silver at the World Championships. Coffey resumed full-time training last fall and was not part of that team.

"I think what we’ve learned is experience counts for a lot," said Coffey, a three-time gold medalist at the World Championships. "I think COVID really threw us for a loop in that we had some athletes retire who I would have considered really good contenders for the eight. And I think we had a lot of new faces in the boat and we never had the opportunity to compete as a crew prior to going to the Olympics.

"So it was a confluence of a lot of different factors. But I think now we’ve raced together internationally, everybody’s experienced. We have one person new in the boat, but she was on a team last year. So in that sense I feel a lot more sure going into the race that everyone feels really confident and I didn’t get the overwhelming confidence going into Tokyo."

More: Return home, trip to WGI took away sting of Tokyo disappointment

Coffey: 'We need to row our race'

Other countries competing in the eight include Tokyo gold medalist Canada, Australia, Denmark, Great Britain, Italy and Romania. Coffey said the expectation of a strong field is a given, but she is focused on her team.

"We need to row our race and not get too concerned about what’s happening outside of us," she said. "Just being consistent and rowing our race profile. I think there’s a tendency in any kind of performance environment where when it comes time to compete you think you have to go above and beyond what you do every day. If you’re pushing hard every day and you feel like you’re maximizing your capacity in your training, race day shouldn’t look any different from practice day."

Coffey has praised the revised training program for the United States since Tokyo, which includes a new high-performance director and new coaching staff. A strong overall U.S. showing at the World Cup added to the optimism.

Among training changes are having the men and women working much more in tandem. American rowers geared up for Paris initially at the team's training site in Princeton, New Jersey, then left in early July to continue preparations in Erba, Italy.

Coffey said there are a lot of variables in the sport, such as the choppiness of the water, the wind and having eight rowers in the boat who are counted on to be at their sharpest.

"When you go out there and you have a good warmup and you take the first five strokes, you essentially know what kind of race it's going to be," said Coffey, who works remotely for a New York City private equity firm and has degrees from Harvard and Cambridge. "If you're all locked in, synced in, pushing your legs back together, honed in on the person in front of you, you know it's going to be good.

"But it's not like you can show up to race day and be like, 'Hey, everybody's feeling great, we're going to have a good row.' You have to go out there, execute a great warmup and be really, really focused from the first stroke. If you are, then you're going to have a great race."

Follow Andrew Legare on Twitter: @SGAndrewLegare . You can also reach him at alegare@gannett.com . To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today

This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Burdett rower Olivia Coffey focused on gold in Paris Olympics after Tokyo disappointment