Rowena Meredith (AUS)

Rising Star – March 2018

Rowena Meredith is one of Australia’s rising stars in the sport of rowing. She first competed internationally in 2015, as a 20-year-old, at the World Rowing Under 23 Rowing Championships. She and her crewmates in the women’s quadruple sculls crossed the line in silver.

Since then, Meredith has continued to compete in the quad exclusively, winning another world under-23 championship silver medal as well as two World Rowing Cup medals.

To help celebrate International Women’s Day of 2018, Meredith has been chosen as World Rowing’s Rising Star. As well as an elite rower, Meredith is a paramedic in training and a rowing coach. She shares with us a piece of her life in sport.

I discovered rowing… back in 2008, post-Beijing. But I think it was always in my destiny, after all my nickname is Row.

Rowing is the sport that suits me best, because… I like sitting down.

The result I am most proud of so far is… making it this far in my career and still loving it more and more.

The qualities I most appreciate in my teammates are… their humour! It gets me through the long kilometres. 

When I am not rowing… I’m training to become a paramedic and any left-over time is spent sharing my love for rowing as a rowing coach.

My non-rowing friends think that rowing is… a never-ending extreme hobby of mine, complete with strange tan lines and no holiday breaks.

My biggest strength is… tolerance and positivity, well I hope so? It’s hard to know what your strengths are in a career where you critique and analyse each day, hour, stroke to get the best outcome each time.

I’m most relaxed when… probably when I’m by the ocean – it’s something that really calms my soul. However, I also am really relaxed by the silence of nature.

In my fridge, you will always find… a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables. I love to change things up and fresh is always best! Chocolate doesn’t usually go amiss either though.

If I was an animal, I would be… a crab, because I’m always a catch and I’ll stop you dead. 

The best thing in life right now is… living the dream! A full-time athlete, training with a great squad and rowing on some of the best water in the world. 

As a woman, what I most appreciate about the world of rowing is… its equality, at the moment. I really feel that, unlike quite a few other sports, we as a community are very level-headed across both genders and look to keep it that way to lead into greater society. 

What I find most challenging as a female rower is… perception. Sometimes I think we are perceived as being too emotional, while other times when we are very driven we become too bossy. It’s hard to find and show the balance to naive populations.

In my opinion, more women should consider practicing the sport of rowing at elite level because… it teaches you more life lessons than you could ever imagine. You’ll learn so much more than just the sport, so much that can be applied to every aspect of your world. 

If I could change one thing about the world it would be… narrow-mindedness. If everyone took time to understand each other maybe there would less violence and more equality globally.

I think the future of women’s rowing will be… empowering. Women are learning what it means to group together and drive the weight together to get the best result and make the changes. I think this can also make rowing a model sport for not only other athletes but also the greater female population. 

In ten years’ time, I imagine the sport of rowing to be… faster than ever before. I imagine new technology will allow us to improve our equipment and also to improve our bodies, letting us go from strength to strength.