A car crash nearly ended Sophia Luwis’ rowing career. Now, she’s an alternate at the Paris Olympics.

PRINCETON, N.J. — Sophia Luwis and Audrey Boersen of Conshohocken’s Whitemarsh Boat Club affectionately call themselves “Tubby Tank” and “Tiny Tank,” respectively. It all started when the pair placed second in a doubles race in the open weight category at the National Selection Regatta II in May 2022.

“I always used to have a hard time making weight, so I called myself Tubby Tank, and [Audrey] is a shorter person, so we called her Tiny Tank, and then we just were the ‘Tanks’,” Luwis, 26, told The Inquirer. “So your tank name is the thing you have to fight hardest against to overcome.”

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Added Boersen: “It’s more than just a name — you get to identify this shortcoming of yours or something that you need to work on something that you’re up against all the time. That’s really brought us together. It’s fun. We have our ‘tank team’ is what we call ourselves when we’re in the double; it’s just become this really great bonding thing for the two of us.”

They’re from completely different parts of the country — Luwis rowed collegiately at William & Mary in Virginia, Boersen at Grand Valley State in Michigan — and started training together in fall 2021. They quickly became best friends, though that friendship has been tested — in and out of the water — over the last two years.

Luwis will be an alternate for the lightweight women’s double U.S. rowing Olympic team at the 2024 Paris Games. Boersen, who won silver in the lightweight women’s single sculls at last month’s World Rowing Cup III, will compete in the single lightweight sculls at next month’s World Championships in Canada. But just as quickly as their partnership began, it almost ended.

On Sept. 3, 2022, while commuting to practice ahead of the World Championships, the pair got into a serious car crash. Luwis was driving and Boersen was the passenger, and both suffered injuries that knocked them out for the remainder of the 2022 season. Boersen had a concussion and road rash, but Luwis sustained three brain bleeds, a collapsed lung, nerve damage in both legs, broken ribs, and road rash. She was in the ICU and rehab for a combined 24 days. They’d been set to compete in the women’s lightweight quad for the U.S. rowing national team.

But at no point did Luwis or Boersen think about walking away from rowing, despite the recovery that lay ahead. Luwis took baby steps in her recovery and was back the boat by early 2023.

“For me, seeing her in that state after that car crash was very jarring,” Boersen said. “I knew she had the personality and the drive and the perseverance to recover from it, but at that moment, I was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen next.’

“She recovered very successfully went on to have a very great, great racing season last year and obviously rolling into this year. Being able to go and make the Olympic team, it’s phenomenal to watch. Very, very inspiring.”

Luwis won gold medals in the lightweight single sculls at the 2023 Bled International Regatta and single sculls at the 2023 World Rowing Cup III. She also won silver at this year’s World Rowing Cup II. But she’ll never forget the moment when she won her heat in the lightweight singles boat at the 2023 World Championships, a year to the date of her crash.

“I remember I walked into the hotel room, and [Audrey] was sitting on the bed. She burst into tears, I burst into tears, and we just like hugged each other, legitimately thinking, ‘I can’t believe we’re alive,’” said Luwis, who later won the bronze medal in that event. “And we’re both at the world championships. For our sport together. Doing the thing. So, yeah, it was huge.

“I’ve never thought of my self as one of those people — you see people who get cancer or get super injured, and then they come back and there’s the comeback story. And you see that, you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s great for them,’ but I would think I would never be able to do that. I still kind of feel like that like a little impostor syndrome of ‘Oh I was able to overcome that’ because you can’t think about that while it’s happening.”

Luwis ultimately was named the 2023 USRowing women’s athlete of the year.

In addition to their pro rowing careers, both Boersen and Luwis joined the Lower Merion staff in March of last year to assist the rowing teams. Coming to high school practices in the afternoon after their own morning sessions was a difficult transition at first.

“It’s such a granular level to coming back in the afternoon and needing to coach these kids how to stay afloat,” Luwis said. “It was a good challenge in practice of ‘I can’t get into the nitty-gritty details’ because they’re going to tune me out after 30 seconds. They’re capable of taking in a lot. So what’s the most impactful thing I can say? … So that was a cool challenge learning experience.”

Boersen, who was the sculling coach, added: “It took me about a week to realize, ‘Oh, I have to go all the way back down to basics.’ But I actually think overall that helped me so much because you can’t be focused on the details of the stroke without having the fundamentals lined up. So being able to go from me thinking about where my hands are in the stroke to having to teach high schoolers, ‘You actually have to use your legs.’ … Being able to go back to the basics like that so often I think really helps my [own] stroke as well.”

The pair have trained together, raced together, and even raced against each other as recently as May, but their relationship remains as strong as ever. Though Luwis beat out Boersen for the lightweight double sculls alternate spot for the Olympics, their support for each other has never wavered.

“I feel like it’s really rare to have this person who is my best friend, my competition, my training partner, like all of that kind of rolled into one, so I feel so grateful to have that relationship with her in my life,” Boersen said. “It’s just amazing to be that close to her, watch her do all of these really awesome things, and then also have her push me, in rowing, in life, whatever it is.”

Added Luwis: “She’s been huge integral to all this and now that we’re on separate paths. She’s going to the world championship team, and I’ll be on the Olympic side. Now we can talk a lot, and there’s no like, ‘We’re going for the same things.’”