Cox won’t let cancer diagnosis stop her from competing again

A ROWING cox who is undergoing cancer treatment says she is determined to return to competition.

Erin Kennedy, a double world champion, European champion and world-record holder, was diagnosed with breast cancer in May.

She turned down a chance to cox a women’s eight at Henley Royal Regatta and instead competed in the mixed coxed fours event at the European championships in Munich last month.

She and her crew of Frankie Allen, Giedre Rakauskaite, Ed Fuller and Ollie Stanhope won gold to maintain their unbeaten record.

However, the 30-year-old cox decided not to take part in the world championships in the Czech Republic this week in order to undergo treatment and be fit enough to compete at the Paris Paralympics in 2024.

Kennedy said: “It hurts that I’m not there but actually I just keep thinking that it’s such a privilege to have something that I love so much and something to work towards for next season.

“If there was anything that was going to motivate me to get better, it’s to come back and to do this all again next season.

“To take this crew to Paris, that’s what motivates me. I know these guys will be with me all the way. I feel so proud to be a part of this crew.

“It’s amazing to be a European champion and to keep the legacy going. It was amazing to get to share that moment with them and for them to give me my final race — it’s pretty special and something we won’t forget.”

After their victory in Munich, Kennedy stayed on with her husband Sam, an army captain, family and friends who had gone to support her. They watched the other sports in order to soak up the unique atmosphere of so many European championships taking place at the same time.

Kennedy said: “It was a really good thing to do to appreciate what had just happened. It was after we flew back home that I had my last training session and that was really emotional.

“I helped them pack up the boats and essentially waved them off, knowing they were carrying on with the project and I’d have to stay back for a while — that was hard.”

She underwent two rounds of chemotherapy before travelling to Germany and had her third and fourth soon after returning.

Now she has begun a different type of chemotherapy which is weekly as long as her body responds quickly enough, meaning it should finish before Christmas.

Kennedy said: “I’ve been really lucky because I haven’t had severe nausea or vomiting, I’ve just been very tired. You feel the fatigue within the first hour or so after the chemo enters your body and it lasts for about three or four days.

“I’ve been sleeping a lot and taking things quite slow. I’m also not watching much TV to just keep my mind relaxed.

“I can also tell the difference in my skin — it’s less happy and getting dry — and my hair is falling out.”

Kennedy, who is originally from Plymouth and now lives in Station Road, Henley, has represented Leander for seven years and Great Britain for five.

She is the only cox to be a Paralympic, European and world champion. In 2019, her then crew, consisting of Stanhope, Rakauskaite plus Ellen Buttrick and James Fox, set a world record at the world championships.

Kennedy was made an MBE in this year’s New Year Honours for services to rowing.

Her involvement in the sport began at Oxford University where she studied history and English.

After graduating in 2014, she joined Leander Club and in 2016 was invited to train full time at the national training centre after being nominated as a spare cox for that year’s Paralympics.

This year, Kennedy won gold medals at the Gavirate International Regatta in Italy and the first World Cup regatta in Belgrade. She was diagnosed shortly before the latter event. She was in the shower when she discovered a lump near the top of her left breast during the middle of a training camp in Italy and suspected something was wrong.

In June, she told the Telegraph: “I thought I’d check it again in a couple of days because your boobs can change around your periods.

“I checked again in a few days and I was like, ‘Sxxx, that is a lump.’ I could feel it and it definitely just wasn’t tissue. It was quite solid. I could see it if I pulled my skin because it’s quite close to the surface.

“I felt so annoyed. That was the prevailing emotion rather than despair or sadness. Genuinely, one of the first things I was thinking of when they told me was, ‘What about rowing?’ That’s the sportsperson’s response. It wasn’t, ‘Am I going to die?’ It was, ‘Can I go to the European championships in August?’”

Now she wants to encourage other women to check and know their bodies.

Kennedy said: “I had been to check lumps in the past that didn’t turn out to be anything and I wasn’t expecting this one to be anything.”

There is a risk that the chemotherapy could impair her ability to have children, so she is being induced into an artificial menopause to protect her ovaries and is exploring the possibility of egg
harvesting. Kennedy said: “Catching it quite early meant that I could do fertility preservation.

“The scary thing is just your unknown pathway for the next year completely changes in one meeting but once you get the treatment plan at least you can focus on that.

“The hardest thing with this is the lack of structure. With rowing you’re always being told what to do and you’re always training but now all of a sudden I’m not required to be anywhere or do anything.

“It would be great to get back into it when the team is back. A cox is there to build the team and support the athletes and me not being very well doesn’t mean I can’t do those things.”

If her treatment stays on schedule, she might have surgery in January and be able to recover in time for spring training.

But her longer-term aim is to compete in Paris in a “normal” setting with spectators.

Kennedy said: “I want to experience the Games that I didn’t get to experience in Tokyo, where there were no friends or family or spectators. You just had to compete for yourself and each other because there wasn’t anything else there.

“In Paris, I’ll have friends and family around and hopefully the all-clear too — that would be amazing.”