JACKSONVILLE, Fla — An aspiring Olympian is leaving her home for the past four years to pursue her Olympic career.
If you're in the sailing world you may already know the name Charlotte Rose.
Rose is a two-time collegiate national sailing champion (college singlehanded national champion) and just graduated from Jacksonville University. Her campaign for the 2024 Olympics begins now.
"Campaigning kind of is like getting yourself out there," Rose said. "Fundraising for being able to travel, traveling around Europe, traveling around the world competing against the top other nations in the world, basically trying to become the best that you can be."
First Coast News caught up with Rose on her last day in Jacksonville. Her boat was already loaded up for her trip to a competition in New Orleans. She's ready as ever for the competitions on the horizon.
"It's kind of like moving chess," Rose said about sailing. "Where it's like all the pieces that you do are constantly changing. The water could be really choppy, the water could be really flat, everything's really different. There could be current, like here in the St. Johns River, there could just be no current. So that's what I love about it. It keeps me on my toes."
Rose is keeping the competition on their toes. In the national championship she won in November, she had a rule infraction that brought her down to 7th place.
"I went up to John and I said, 'What if I lose this protest? Do you think I could still win?'" Rose said about her conversation with her JU coach. "And he told me, he did the math and he was like, 'You're gonna have to win every single race tomorrow if the girl in second got placed all seconds.' And so then I went to the protest room, I lost and I got in the van and I was like, 'John, I'm gonna win tomorrow.'"
And she did.
"I was just so determined to be like, 'I have grit and I can do what I set my mind to,'" Rose said.
Next on her mind is the 2024 Olympics.
"This has been my dream since I was nine, so I finally get to do it," she said.
It won't be easy.
"I have to work out all the time and I think that takes a lot of dedication," said Rose.
But it will be worth it.
"It's like a feeling inside of me," Rose said. "I can't explain it, where my head's clear, I'm really relaxed. All I'm thinking about is sailing and getting off the line going fast."
It's a feeling Rose hopes more women find in this male-dominated sport.
"In the USA team there's only four women that do my class and in the men's classes about 12," she said. "So it really shows that we need we need more women, especially in the upcoming youth."
As she sets off on her Olympic campaign, she knows who will be behind her all the way.
"I've made a family here," Rose said. "John has been very supportive. The whole JU sailing team has been really supportive about my Olympic sailing. Now that I'm done, I know that John will support me for the next two years and everybody here at JU will as well."
Rose is working on setting up a website so you can donate to her Olympic campaign and follow her journey.