Invercargill Rowers Aiming For New Zealand Masters

Age is certainly no barrier for four Invercargill Rowing Club competitors who will tackle the New Zealand Masters in Twizel in September.

Jacqui van Dam, 58, and her teammates, Cecilia Russell, 58, Katrina Allan, 53, and Virginia Sweney, 54 have been there before – and are still going strong, after some recent wins at the South Island Masters championships at Picton.

They competed in five events and brought home gold in all, as well as retaining trophies for the fastest women’s 4- for three years running, along with the fastest women’s 2- for two years running over all age groups.

The women first rowed together 37 years ago as teenagers, and reunited after a personal event brought them back together in 2019.

“We all disappeared and had kids but kept in touch with both the coaches,” Jacqui said.

They decided to start training again just six weeks out from the South Island Masters in 2019  racing against much younger masters competitors, and surprised everyone including themselves when they won.

“We have always kept quite fit and we’re old school and very firm on ourselves.  But we have a blast on and off the water,” Jacqui said.

Training every Saturday and Sunday morning on the water during winter, the women do their own individual fitness regimes during the week, and believe it’s their strong friendship that is key to their success.

“It’s a special bond we can’t explain.”   But when we get in the boat we all want the same thing.  We’re hungry to win – we were taught back in the day to be aggressive, but now we train smarter and allow the boat to do more for us.”

Opportunity arises to race against former New Zealand rowers at Nationals.  Jacqui reckons it’s important to keep fit and flexible with age, and just have such strong determination and drive.

“But we’re more relaxed now in our boat.   We just keep turning up.”