High-Tech Cox: Emilie Eldracher

Software engineer Emilie Eldracher will make her Paralympic debut with the U.S. PR3 mixed four in Paris.

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Emilie Eldracher navigates the waters of the Charles River daily. She’s mastered the waterway, the bridges, and every turn. Hailing from Andover, Mass., Eldracher built a name for herself on the Charles. Now she’s hoping to cement herself in Paralympic history with the PR3 mixed coxed four.

Eldracher hadn’t planned on becoming a Paralympian. It wasn’t until 2016, at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta, that she was put into the driver’s seat that would take her to Paris eight years later.

It was the first year the regatta included a race for the PR3 mixed four with coxswain. There were two composite boats, one that was going to Worlds later that year and another that needed a coxswain. Eldracher was at the regatta and volunteered to cox the second PR4+ for the Justin Fryer Trophy.

“From there, I wanted to be involved in any way I could.” Eldracher said.

The path Eldracher pursued took her to Boston and immersed her in technology. In 2018, she joined the openweight women’s rowing team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she trained under Holly Metcalf, the 2017 Patriot League Coach of the Year, and began working in the MIT Sports Lab.

Eldracher coxed the novice eight her freshman year before taking the reins of the varsity eight for the next three years.“She has high energy and is astute and driven to be better,” said Metcalf of Eldracher. “Every year, there’s been new growth.

“She’s become more technically sophisticated and efficient in her language. She’s become more savvy about other people, how their minds work, how their emotions connect to rowing, and what she can do to draw them out and get the best out of them.”

Eldracher’s 2020-21 season was canceled because of Covid, which gave her an extra year of NCAA eligibility. Now, as a graduate student, Eldracher has switched teams and coxes MIT’s heavyweight men’s varsity eight, in addition to Olympic training.

While juggling training for Paris, Division I athletics, and academics, Eldracher works as a researcher at MIT’s Sports Lab, where she’s putting artificial intelligence to use in fashion and techniques to improve athletic performance.

Eldracher’s experience as a rower has inspired her to help Para athletes. For instance, with 3D pose estimation, an iPhone camera, when pointed at a rower, translates movement into an animated stick figure, which through angle analysis, can show how to improve such aspects as the stroke.

“For our U.S. PR3 men’s single sculler, I tracked his handle acceleration using an iPhone camera,” Eldracher said. “I was able to track his wrist joint and get his handle acceleration.
“Once you get handle acceleration, if someone’s on an erg, you know their drag factor. I was able to calculate the force of this Para sculler within two watts of accuracy for the piece he was doing using iPhone footage and 3D pose estimation that was free online.”

With just amateur footage, the possibilities are limitless for understanding angles, force, and power, Eldracher said, and she hopes the technology will be used to help athletes in underfunded programs, such as Olympic sports.

“If I can get 1/100th of a second for an athlete in rowing or another sport and change someone’s life trajectory, I want to do that.” Eldracher said.

Eldracher’s PR3 four with coxswain qualified for the Olympic Games at the 2023 World Championships in Serbia by finishing in the top six (the boat crossed the line in second place to earn silver). After the boat qualified, the fastest lineup was determined at USRowing selection camps.

Ben Washburne, Alex Flynn, Skylar Dahl, Gemma Wollenschlaeger, and Eldracher were selected as the mixed four with coxswain to represent the U.S. in Paris (Aug. 30 to Sept 1). The entire crew will be first-time Paralympians, and they’re aiming to improve on the silver medal won by a similar boat at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Eldracher, a Taylor Swift fan, believes this pre-Olympics season mirrors the lyrics of her favorite song, “Long Live,” about celebrating the moment and enjoying the present. In her case, Eldracher said, it’s about being grateful for those around her and the opportunity to compete for her country.

“Just extreme gratefulness for my team, for my coach, for the director, who talked about changing lives.” Eldracher said. “They’ve selected us, they’ve given us this opportunity.”

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