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Claire Vannelli Senior Profile
4/21/2015 8:30:00 AM | Rowing, Athletics
Durham, N.C. -- Recently, GoDuke.com sat down with senior Claire Vannelli to discuss her time at Duke.
GoDuke.com: Where has been your favorite place to compete with Duke rowing?
Claire Vannelli: San Diego. The atmosphere is so festive and there is always a huge showing of parents and family. The race course is six feet off of the beach so you're really up close and personal with everyone racing. We had a lot of success there my first two years – we didn't go back last year. It's always just been a really positive team experience. The location and the whole event is incredible.
GoDuke.com: What is your favorite road trip memory?
CV: There are so many. Something happens every year. Looking back now, my most humorous memory was my freshman year. My very first race was the Princeton Chase is the fall. PJ and I (she's a senior now) both slept in. We were supposed to leave by 5:00 AM Saturday morning and it was 5:45 in the pouring rain. Two freshmen had run to both of our dorms. I had left packing to the morning to entice myself to get up, so I was asleep for 45 minutes past take-off and I hadn't been packed. The whole bus ride I contemplated transferring. I didn't get off to go to the bathroom because I didn't want to look at anybody. The upperclassmen had to wait in the rain for more than an hour for us to wake up. Now it's quite a bonding experience for PJ and I and we always tell the freshmen every year and tell them “You can't screw up more than we did. No matter what, don't be stressed. Get to the bus on time; you can't do worse.” I didn't think I could come back from that.
GoDuke.com: What is one lesson Duke Rowing has taught you that you'll use for the rest of your life.
CV: There are so many. Resiliency is one. Dedication. And that is wrapped up to me in the phrase “mind over matter.” Partly for me, the past two years I was very injured to the point where I would race and spend the week between races just trying to bandage myself up and get in the boat for the next race. This past year, last semester, I was also out, but working with my trainer and some people from home I managed to overcome my injury. I have an orthotic now and half-inch leg length difference so that was my problem and there were times last year when I thought I wouldn't be able to walk or sit without pain anymore and now I'm back. I'm trying to train for the national team and hitting my personal best. So personally that's a big thing. So really, putting your mind to it, you can really achieve it. The seniors now made a pact as freshmen to go to the national championship before we graduate. Each year we've chipped off pieces of that goal. We've beaten top 10 schools, qualified for 8 finals, we've made the top 20 rankings, all that this school hadn't done before. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish it.
GoDuke.com: What is your proudest academic achievement?
CV: I am a Biomedical Engineering major. In my senior design class last semester we went from start to finish to build a device to be used in our professor's practice. He told us his problem and we spent the semester building it. By the end it was 2:00 AM before the night of the presentation; by the time we had it finally functional and the screen was working and it did everything we needed, I took it to my room that night because I didn't want to leave it alone. That's just how proud I was of it. That was probably the best. It was a combination of every class I took at Duke that led up to that moment and fed into what we were able to do. I love the Duke engineering program for that reason. Everyone takes a design class and you really have that culmination moment where you put everything towards this one product.
GoDuke.com: What do your teammates mean to you?
CV: They mean everything to me. They are the people I want to be but they are also the people I want to be around. People that are my best friends. I look up to each of them in different ways for so many different things. One of the best perks is that no matter what issue we are talking about or what thing we are trying to pursue you have someone who is an expert on that subject. I'm Canadian and when the American elections came up I turned to someone who is a political science major and she filled me in. It's things like that. As a community, we cover every base. It's an environment that's so rare and something that I'm very sad to be leaving in a couple of months. It's totally created by the girls on that team.
GoDuke.com: What makes being a Duke rower special?
CV: We can excel in all areas and we can be committed athetes and competitive athletes. We can be dedicated students and working with some of the best people in our field in our classes. We can also be very engaged activists and citizens of our campus. There are so many facets of being a Duke rower. That's why I chose this school; I could see that and it was definitely something I wanted to be a part of. It's something definitely unique to this school.
GoDuke.com: What are you going to miss most about being on campus every day?
CV: Whenever my mom visits she always tells me “Claire, your life is surrounded by beauty.” Everything is just so beautiful. I lived on campus all four years and I love the physical campus. Also feeling connected to such a greater good. Everyone that you pass by or ride the bus with or are in class with is pursuing something so unique to them and so original and they're passionate about it and they're doing it. Just being able to have a conversation about that or just being able to see people's inspiration. We're all doing different things but we all want to pursue excellence in our own way. That's the best community you can ask for to be surrounded by.
GoDuke.com: What is your favorite place in Durham, not on campus?
CV: All of the food places. I'd never had a burrito before I came here. I never had anything Mexican and I just love the Geer Street Garden,Monuts and Elmo's. The whole culture of the city is incredible. I love the activist feel you get when you're around Durham and it's a really comfortable place to be.
GoDuke.com: What do you want people here to remember you by?
CV: I think I'll be remembered for how proud I am to be Canadian and how much I talk about that for one thing. I've always had the mindset that you never make an excuse for yourself. Any boat, any sea, any day kind of thing, you will push to be the fastest. It doesn't matter what you look like or what you're background is or what you used to pull for your best or how injured you used to be. It doesn't matter. On the way, you're going to give everything you have and that's going to translate to every practice and every race. That's definitely what I've tried to emulate in my four years and I've seen a lot of older role models and younger role models do the same thing. That's the mentality that I have and I hope that's what I'd be remembered by.
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