WINNING WAVES!

World rowing champion Martha DeLong proves that age is nothing but a number as she sweeps and sculls into the New Year with championship dreams on her mind and goals of further glory in her heart.

The American mother-of-two, who moved to the kingdom five-years-ago and lives in Amwaj Islands, has set her sights on notching further victories to her rowing portfolio by competing in the European Rowing Championship in Germany in July and participating in the World Masters Rowing Championship in September in the US.

Until then, the 62-year-old veteran athlete will continue whipping herself into shape by training twice-a-day for five to six hours and joining monthly regattas in the UAE to ‘warm-up’ for the challenges ahead.

Martha, a health, safety, security and environmental advisor and one of the principals at Doublemm Consulting firm in New Zealand, said: “I would love to bring home more medals. They are the reward for the hard work, really. The competition is honestly fierce out there even at my age.

“However, if I can take up a competitive sport in my mid-fifties and passionately continue with it into my early 60s, then anyone can! Rowing is a full body experience and it’s never too late.”

Rowing, for the uninitiated, involves propelling a racing boat shell on water using oars. The sport can be either recreational for enjoyment and fitness purposes, or in Martha’s case, highly competitive.

There is a number of different boat classes ranging from an individual shell called a single scull to an eight-person shell with coxswain, called a coxed eight. A coxswain is the person in charge, channelling the team’s navigation and steering efforts.

Rowing is also one of the oldest Olympic sports. Male rowers have competed since the 1900s and women’s rowing was added to the Olympic programme in 1976. Today, 14 boat classes race at the Olympics.

Martha took up the oar in November 2009 in New Zealand, her husband Michael’s home country. Mr Henderson, 56, is general manager of Bahraini Aviation Refuelling Company. The couple lived there for years with their daughters Caroline, 27, who works for Boeing Aircraft in the US and Anna, 25, who has graduated from sports management and business management.

Both daughters are rowing fanatics as well. Martha used to drive her girls to the Auckland Rowing Club at the early hours, after school and to weekend regattas. They had taken up rowing at high school and would keep their boats there.

During one of her many visits, as she waited around for her daughters, she was approached by the Masters Rowing Coach who said to her: “You have long levers (meaning arms and legs); have you ever thought about giving it a go too?”

Martha, who was 53 at the time, figured ‘why not’ and she has not stopped rowing since. She initially learned to sweep in a boat with eight others and now competes in single, double, pair, quad, four (coxed or coxless) and the BIG eight events.

Martha encourages people to take up the sport as she says rowing has helped her mentally and physically, as well as taken her on travels around the world.

She said: “What I love about rowing is the mental and physical stimulation. It has been a great way to fend off the effects of aging which can be pretty ruthless to ladies 50+ in age.

“I’m very competitive and what I do is a very popular sport amongst others my age in Europe, the US, Australia, Asia and so on - actually, wherever there is ‘good water’!

“We race against each other based on the average age in the boat entered, whether an all-female crew, or mixed crews with equal numbers of men and women.

“I am rather a ‘loner’ so I enjoy my time rowing and racing my single scull which is here with me in Bahrain. However, rowing is also such a great team sport as everyone has to work together to make the boat go faster.

“It is very easy to point a finger at someone else in a crew boat, but that serves no purpose as you have to learn to work together. You have to bring several people together of different shapes, sizes, ages and levels of fitness in order to move the boat as efficiently as you can through the water.

“It is such a great feeling when it all comes together, especially in a BIG 8+ boat. It is also very rewarding to have completed any race, whether it is a 15km head race or a 1k sprint, when the boat has moved well. On those days, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose … well, in all honesty, it is always nice to win or at least place!

“Rowing competitively also has provided me with the opportunity to travel. I have seen spectacular parts of the world and have met so many like-minded people. For example, at the World Masters Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia, last September, there were approximately 5,000 Masters Rowers entered, racing in over 9,000 boats. It was quite the buzz!”

Martha has competed with the Auckland Rowing Club, with British Rowing that’s affiliated with Walbrook Rowing Club and in other ‘composites’ in New Zealand, Australia, the US, the UK, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Slovenia, and most recently in the UAE.

She has participated in three World Masters Rowing Championships in Varese-Italy, Hazewinkel-Belgium, Copenhagen-Denmark and in three World Masters Games in Penrith-Australia, Turino-Italy and Karapiro-New Zealand and has also competed in European Championships and in several national championships. 

She has won silver and bronze in the World Masters Rowing Championships 2017 in Bled, Slovenia in the quad and double category. She also clinched silver and bronze in the World Masters Games 2017, New Zealand, in the mixed Double and Women’s 8+. Martha was also a gold medal winner in the Double category in the World Masters Champs in Copenhagen in 2016, in the Pairs head double in 2014 in UK, in Vesta Vets Head in 2014 in UK, in the New Zealand Nationals Single in 2011 and in the Mixed Double in 2010 and 2017.

She has achieved several other gold and silver accolades over the years.

Her next regatta will be in February 2 in Ajman and then in March 2 in Dubai on her birthday, followed by another in Abu Dhabi on April 13 and one in Sharjah on May 4.

Martha said: “I hope to stay healthy so that I can continue to train and compete. Potential injury always sits right around the corner, it seems, and I have to work very hard to ’keep it at bay’. Thank goodness for great Chinese therapists and other physios here in Bahrain!

“Also, Bahrain’s climate poses challenges to my rowing and training here. The velocity of the wind and its effect on the water’s surface really controls my ability to train on the water. That is why I spend so much time in the gym.

“The temperatures are lovely at this time of year but the winds are up, which results in rough water, making it a tough outing in a single scull.

“When the water is rather calm it is during that time of year when it is very, very hot, forcing me to be on the water around 5am and, even then, I can only handle about one hour of paddling to prevent my black carbon-fibre boat from melting!”

Aside from achieving her rowing dreams, Martha continues encouraging her daughters who are also competitively involved in rowing.

Caroline rows out of the US National Training Centre site in Oklahoma and she also coaches several corporate 8+ boats which compete against one another in the region. Meanwhile, Anna is also a very competitive athlete having rowed for the New Zealand U21s for two seasons, winning all of her races. She has won gold at the prestigious New Zealand Maadi Cup regatta and holds a New Zealand national title for the senior women’s double sculls. She currently rows for North Shore Rowing Club in Auckland, New Zealand, and is training for the New Zealand national rowing championships to be held in a month.