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Another hellacious day of training over, Devery Karz loosened her grip on the oars she'd been grasping and took a moment for herself. It was rush hour in Austin, Texas, and one more session of what the Park City-raised rower called "the crazy barn" had come to a close.

Karz took that moment in the early spring to look at the lush green landscape around the Colorado River, at the still-shining sun, at the turtles swimming nearby in the water. The lasting memories of those days in "the crazy barn" — what she described as a vicious team selection cycle that lasted three months ­— was watching the cars stacked in lines on the bridge into town.

At this point, Karz ended the brief respite. She picked up her oars again for a recovery paddle from another testing day of training to reach shore.

"I kept telling myself, 'I just need to keep pulling really hard, because I do not want to be in traffic,'" Karz said.

A group of five rowers convened in Austin to determine which tandem would be the best fit to qualify for the Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro this August. That was the primary goal. The second part of that equation was to make the U.S. rowing trials in Florida in April seem pedestrian compared to "the crazy barn."

"Every day it was, 'This is it, I either win today or I'm done. I had to win today, or I'm done,'" Karz said. "That was the mentality that I used. I had a feeling every day this is the last day I'll be rowing."

Those months in Austin eventually churned out the pair of Karz and Kate Bertko, who would go after the U.S. lightweight double sculls spot for Rio in April. That was the latest success in a rowing career for the Utahn who didn't pick up an oar until she went to college at Oregon State University, where she wanted to try something new.

"I remember Devery saying, 'I think I can do really well in this, and who knows, maybe I can take it further someday,'" said her father, Rob.

'A really fun find'

Oregon State coach Kate Maxim recalls those early-morning training sessions on the Willamette River. One of hundreds of newcomers to the novice team, Karz sat in the stroke seat of the eight-person boat as the raindrops collided with the water.

The month-long tryout for the novice team featured around 200 rowers, mostly those new to the sport. By the end of the year, that group was down to 14. In that mix was Karz, the former Park City High cross-country and track and field athlete who also grew up an avid mountain biker along the Wasatch Back.

"Rowing is fun and exciting, but it's not something that's action-packed," Karz said. "So for a lot of people, their mind is not occupied by something other than pain — and pain. I think it turns a lot of people off."

Not Karz.

Maxim said of all the rowers she helped introduce to the sport over the years, Karz was in the top tier because of her athleticism and unrelenting drive. Dubbed "a really fun find" at the time by Maxim, Karz went on to letter for the Beavers for three years and was named the team's Most Valuable Oarswoman in 2011.

Her rise in the sport took her to the national-team level, where she eventually starred with the U.S. U-23 team. In 2009, she won a silver medal at the Under-23 World Championship ­— held in, of all places, Rio. Then the rise slowed to a halt. Karz broke her elbow and missed her senior year at Oregon State. She minored in Mandarin in school, so she chose to move to China and teach English.

"I guess it was time for me to continue on with a standard lifestyle — or something," Karz said.

One or the other

She watched the 2012 Olympic Games in London. She saw friends and competitors on the TV screen and realized then she wasn't done with rowing. Hired as an exporter of medical supplies to China in the fall of 2012, Karz moved to Washington, D.C., simultaneously starting that "standard lifestyle" she spoke of and getting back into the boat.

Upon joining the Potomac Boat Club, she got worked over nearly every day as her body readjusted to life on the water. Working full time, but also striving to get back into the national team picture, Karz started to realize if the push she felt while watching the London Games was going to take her to Rio, she'd soon have to choose. At national team trials that year, she finished second to another racer by two seconds.

"That's hard to take," Karz said, "but I took it."

It had to be one or the other. Full-time in the office or full-time in the seat, an oar in each hand.

"I could both work full time and row full time and be mediocre at both, or I quit my job, put all my chips in the basket and I push all in for 2016," she said. "That way, if I make it or don't make it, either way I could've looked back and said I did everything in my power to make it."

So Karz quit her job and moved to a training center in Oklahoma City in early 2014. The conversation with her parents was easy; they encouraged the new path their daughter set out on.

"She's interesting because she tends to be pretty humble with her abilities and she doesn't really like to have people know what kind of talent she has," said her mother, Linda. "She'd much rather be the underdog."

Now an assistant coach at Princeton, Maxim said she was surprised to see Karz return to the sport. Maxim watched from afar as her former protégé struggled to get back into shape as other rowers zipped by on the water in training. Maxim says Karz has a unique blend of her own "stubbornness and persistence" that allowed her to return to an optimal level.

"She was genuinely in love with the challenge and she was willing to set up the lifestyle to put that first," Maxim said.

Finding the right mix

In 2015, Karz qualified the lightweight double sculls boat for Rio with Michelle Sechser. But neither punched her own ticket to Brazil. They merely qualified the boat for the Olympic Games, only to see later which rowers would be selected to compete at the trials for a shot at those seats.

Karz won bronze at a World Cup last year, and later at the World Championships in August 2015 in France, the lightweight double boat qualified for the Olympics by a 10th of a second. The top 11 boats qualified for Rio, and that 10th of a second over Sweden earned the Americans a spot.

"Qualifying a boat for the Olympics is a lot of pressure," she said.

Karz, Secsher and Bertko all put their faith in the training process laid out by their coach at Vesper Boat Club, and knew the fastest tandem would rise to the top.

Rob Karz said there was a time when his daughter thought it would be Sescher and Bertko gunning for the Olympic qualifying slot in April. The two were getting a lot of boat time together at one point, he said, but when it came down to choosing the pair, Rob said something changed.

"Devery ended up being faster," he said.

The "crazy barn" helped Karz grow accustomed to the mentality of the unknown during the run-up to the trials. Those countless hours of rowing on the river in Austin prepped her for whatever lie ahead.

"You put four-to-eight years of your life into one race that is either you accomplish your goal or you don't," she said. "That's really hard, because it doesn't mean you haven't accomplished anything, it's just the goal you set for yourself, you didn't accomplish 100 percent of that."

Before the trials in Sarasota, Fla., in late April, the decision came down: Bertko and Karz it was.

A 12-second lead

For all her natural talents as an athlete, Devery Karz has always asked her family to steer clear until any race is over. During the state cross-country meets in high school, Rob and Linda would have to watch intently, but quickly hide behind a cluster of trees when Devery ran by. The added pressure messed with her timing and focus, Linda said.

So Rob and Linda had the task of making a grand surprise at the Olympic trials an undercover siege. Aunts and uncles flew down to Florida — as did Devery's older brother, his wife and their kids. Most family members had never seen her row before. And here she was rowing for Rio. The crowd on April 24 was sizable but still, Linda and Rob and Co. had their hiding spots picked out.

They had to.

Out in front for nearly the entire qualifying race, Karz and Bertko kept heaving. It wasn't until the last 250 meters of the race — when Karz noticed a 12-second lead — that she knew the past eight years had a fitting finale. At 7 minutes and 18.50 seconds, the first finishers on the water, Karz and Bertko could finally let go of their oars.

"You have all these endorphins built up … that you have under lock-and-barrel because you couldn't let it affect your day-to-day practice," Karz said. "Still, every day, it sinks in that I get to go to Rio, represent the United States and get to try to take down every other boat on the race course."

During the medal ceremony, the Karz crew blended in. It wasn't until Linda took her grandson and sprinted toward Devery, who was in a roped-off area, that she realized who all was in attendance.

"I'm still sort of pinching myself a little bit," Linda Karz said. "I knew this was absolutely within her realm, but when you get there, it's, 'Oh my gosh. She's going to the Olympics.'" —

Meet Devery Karz

Age » 28. Sport » Rowing

Class » Lightweight women's double sculls

Hometown » Park City. High school » Park City High

College » Oregon State University

Club » Vesper Boat Club

Current residence » Moorestown, N.J.

Rowing career » Five-time U.S. national team member, won bronze in lightweight double sculls at a 2015 World Cup … finished 10th in lightweight double sculls at the 2014 World Rowing Championships … Finished fifth in lightweight quadruple sculls at 2010 World Rowing U-23 Championships. … Won a silver medal in lightweight quadruple sculls at 2009 U-23 World Championships

Rowing in Rio

Competition » Aug. 6-13 (Eight men's, six women's events)