Years	1987 Match des Seniors (Lt2x 4th) 1992 World Championships (Lt2x 4th) 1993 World Championships (Lt2x 6th) 1994 World Championships (Lt1x 11th) 1995 World Championships (Lt2x 19th) 1996 World Championships (Lt4- 2nd)
Clubs	Burway RC, Staines BC, Nottinghamshire County Rowing Association, Cambridge University Women’s BC, Molesey BC
Height	5’4” or 163cm
Born	1966

Trisha is second from the left in the photo at the top of this page which is a still taken from a video in Tony Reynolds’ personal collection of her four at the World Championships in 1996.

Getting into rowing

Trisha learned to row during her last couple of years at school at a time when she was lacking an outlet for her athetic abilities. “Before that I’d been a runner. I used to do 1,500m, cross country and all that sort of thing and I ran for Middlesex, but there wasn’t much going on at the school I was at by this time, so when my older sister started rowing with some of her friends in Hammersmith, I thought that sounded interesting so I went along to my local club which was Burway,” she explains.

There weren’t many girls or women at the club then but she was happy to single scull. “I did quite a lot of sculling events but I didn’t get anywhere, and then various people told me that I should go to Egham Regatta because I’d win there, so I went there and I duly won!”

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The club’s women’s section took off the following year, coached by the 1980 Olympian Jane Cross. Trisha stroked the first eight which won the novice pennant at the Women’s Head in 1985.

“After the Head,” she remembers, “We broke up into two fours for the summer and my crew went from Novice to Senior A in one season,” picking up five wins.

In the way these things happen, though, many of this successful group drifted away, and with few others left to row with, Trisha returned to sculling in 1986, buying a Davies boat and driving herself off to regattas where she had another really successful season.

In 1987 she moved to Staines BC where there was more of a women’s squad, coached by Ian Shore. Two of the women in this group were trying to gain selection in a pair for the European under-23 Match des Seniors regatta and one, who had been a junior at Marlow RC, suggested that Trisha team up with one of her friends from there, Kristel Osborn, to do a lightweight double. They didn’t have much time to get together, and Trisha had to lose some weight which, she says, “Was quite good for me because I probably wasn’t eating the right things,” but they were selected and reached the final, finishing fourth.

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International rowing career

After reaching this first rung of the international rowing ladder and being introduced to lightweight rowing, Trisha was quite clear that she wanted to take her rowing to the next level. “I’d always dreamed of doing GB. When I was a runner, my dream was to go to the Olympics as a runner, so even at that young age, I was thinking like that and whatever sport I did, I wanted to do it well,” she remembers.

Over the next four years, coached by Tony Rawlings at Staines BC, she trialled for the GB senior squad and rowed in GB lightweight crews at the Women’s Head on several occasions but never quite got into the World Championships team, although it’s worth remembering that there were only three places for lightweight scullers than; a double and a single. “Each time, after I’d been cut, I’d have a little break and think, ‘I’m going to give up rowing,’ but then start again a few months later,” she recalls, ruefully.

Trisha finally made it in 1992.”I did really well in the first session at one of the early trials, and I remember Billy Mason (GB Lightweight Women’s Chief Coach) cycling the whole way with me in the afternoon session, timing it to make sure that it wasn’t a mistake because he couldn’t believe my time!,” she laughs.

“There were several things that made a difference that year, I think,” Trisha reflects. “I got a new Hi-Tech boat to replace my wooden one which hadn’t really been the best of boats, although I don’t know whether that made a difference because I’d also changed my land training programme as well and was training harder because the women’s group at Staines, which was now being coached by David Martin, had grown in size and was very strong at that time – the first eight came sixth at the Women’s Head in 1993 and fourth the following year, and won a silver at the National Championships in 1993 too.”

Three months before the Worlds, she was selected to scull in the lightweight double with Helen Mangan in the lightweight double, although they could only train together at weekends as Helen lived in Runcorn, and both of them had full time jobs. They won the silver medal at Lucerne regatta, but finished fourth at the Worlds. “It was my first Worlds and my first kit so that was amazing to finally do it and achieve what you were keen to achieve all your life,” she recalls, adding, “It was obviously scary, being on the start line of a World Championships, but it was great, and I loved it and definitely wanted to do more.”

After another year doubling at a distance with Helen, the duo hoped that they could improve their result in 1993. They won at Paris regatta, but in the end they finished sixth at the World Championships.

Trisha also raced in the first open women’s single sculls event at Henley Royal Regatta that year, for which she pre-qualified as an established international sculler. Unfortunately, for her, she was drawn against Anneliese Braedel, the Belgian who had won the silver medal at the 1992 Olympic Games, so she went out in the first round, but she nevertheless loved the whole experience. “I trained on the course in lunch and tea intervals during the first few days of racing, and it was just amazing to be part of it that first year,” she remembers. She also got onto the front page of The Times. With media attention about women at Henley abounding, Trisha was approached by a photographer who was looking for a shot that was more unusual than two scullers racing. “He asked me if I could throw some water up in the air because it was really hot,” she says, “So I held my water bottle up and poured it over my face and he took some pictures of that. And the next day somebody said, ‘Have you seen, you’re on the front of The Times!“, and I thought it must be the front of the sports section, but then I went to the newsagent and there it was on the actual front cover!” For copyright reasons, this fun shot sadly can’t be included here.

Still extremely keen to carry on and try to get better, Trisha changed boat for the 1994 trials. Unfortunately, this didn’t seem to help. I don’t know if it was the boat or me, but I didn’t go well that year,” she explains. As a result, she lost her seat in the double with Helen to Phoebe White but as the third fastest lightweight sculler at the time, was selected to single scull at the World Championships that year. She raced in a Hudson shell, which she got on with more, but came eleventh. Although she enjoyed single sculling and was pleased to be improving, she admits, “I probably just wasn’t fast enough,” and adds that she felt she had more to offer in crew boats. “I think I’m more of a crew person than a single sculler. I can do stuff on my own and I’m quite happy to do that and train, but I always think I’m better in a crew.”

Although she still lived in south west London, she then joined Nottinghamshire County Rowing Association, which was a centre of excellence for lightweight rowing, and commuted at weekends to train there and, “I felt I needed to be pushed a bit more,” she explains.

Trisha stroking NCRA to third place at the Women’s Head in 1995. (Photo: Tonia Williams’ personal collection.)

The lightweight double scull had become a key boat in 1995 because it had been added to the programme for the 1996 Olympic Games (the only lightweight women’s boat in there), so competition for it was hotter than ever. In addition, if the crew could come in the top 12 at the 1995 World Championships, the boat would have a guaranteed entry in the Olympics – otherwise it woud have to qualify at a separate regatta in June 1996.

Trisha formed a double with Tonia Williams, who had been World Champion in the lightweight coxless four in 1993 and had also won silvers in the boat in 1993 and 1994. It should have gone well, but it didn’t, and after doing quite badly at Lucerne Regatta in July 1995, Tonia decided that she didn’t want to continue with it. Some extra trials were hastily arranged from which Nicky Dale was selected as Trisha’s new partner, and it is a credit to both of them that with less than a month to gel the new crew (and no international racing opportunities), they got to within 0.33 seconds of qualifying for the Olympics.

In 1996, Trisha, Nicky and several other lightweights (including Tonia’s former crew mates from the hugely successful lightweight four, Jane Hall and Alison Brownless, who had raced a lightweight pair at the Worlds in 1995) were all fighting to get into the double again. After doing extremely well in early trials, it was all due to be decided at a set of trials in February, but with desperately bad luck, Trisha was rushed to hospital with appendicitis a couple of days before they took place. “My mum was in the emergency ward with me saying to the doctors, ‘Is there anything you can do, she’s got an Olympic trial tomorrow?’, but I just lay there thinking that I wanted the pain to stop!”

By the time she was back training again, the opportunity had long gone and the lightweight coxless four that would go to the World Championships had also been provisionally selected. However, Trisha requested a trial for that, and got in. Her four won a silver medal at the World Championships, but the double missed out on qualifying for the Olympics. “Looking on the positive side, I was in a crew with some fun characters, we raced well and achieved a world silver medal,” she reflects. “Although I would have loved to have made the Olympic team and won a world medal in a sculling event, our silver medal in 1996 was more than I could have hoped for when I was lying in bed with peritonitis a few months earlier.”

Full accounts of Trisha’s five years in the GB rowing team can be read here:

 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996

Rowing for Cambridge

While she’d been rowing for the GB team, Trisha had been doing a degree at Brunel University as a mature student, which she found fitted really well round her training. “I only had about ten hours of lectures a week, and as I’d been working up to then, that didn’t seem much to me,” she says. Having graduated, she decided that she wanted to go into teaching got a place to do a PGCE at Cambridge. She trialled for the openweight blue boat, but was only offered a seat in Blondie, the reserve boat. The coaches then suggested that she would be able to make more of a difference to the lightweights than Blondie, so she rowed at six in the lightweight crew which won by a canvas.

“Green is the colour, rowing is the game”

Adapted from Chelsea FC’s well-known football song and referencing Staines BC’s colours, these were the memorable words with which Trisha opened her pre-race chat at Henley Women’ Regatta for the Staines four she stroked (coxed by the author) in 1998.

They also sum up Trisha’s loyalty to the club, of which she has remained a member since she first joined over thirty years ago, and where she has always trained and kept a boat (of some sort). “I’ve always found the atmosphere and members friendly and encouraging. It’s always felt like a family to me,” she says. In fact, many of her actual family are involved there too. Her nieces Beki and Emma joined as juniors and so enjoyed learning the art of sculling that they carried on at university. The girls’ parents – Trisha’s brother Martin and sister in law Jill – became stalwart members of the committee and also have learned to row themselves. “Over the years I’ve often seen junior rowers join the club and slowly the whole family get involved. I love seeing how the club encourages and supports all its members.” Tony Rawlings (Trisha’s early coach) still sculls there and they often recount stories from back in the day. She continues to train at the club for all her sports and did the Women’s Head with Staines in 2017 and 2018, finishing 60 and 67th. Also in 2017 (at the age of 51), she raced in a Staines quad at Metropolitan Regatta with three young women half her age and duly won!

Staines BC was also a great supporter of Trisha during her International career, as were her parents, Kathleen and Michael, who travelled to every World Championship event to cheer her on. In typical Staines BC fashion, despite never having rowed himself, her dad took on the task of laying the course at Staines Regatta for many years.

Dragon boating

After rowing at Staines and then Molesey in club crews (including a rather nippy eight, also coxed by the author, which qualified for the first open women’s eights event at Henley Royal Regatta in 2000), Trisha took up dragon boating. “I’d gone along to watch a friend who did it and ended up in a boat, and then I there was a GB dragon boating team so I thought I’d give that a go!” she explains. “I got what we call an O1, which is a kayak with an ‘ama’ (outrigger) on the side, and I was the second fastest in the country after about three months.”

She raced in the premier women’s GB team from 2001-2012, winning multiple European and World medals and becoming World Champion in the 500m event in 2004. From 2009-2012 she coached as well as paddled in the premier women’s GB team women which, she says, “Was interesting and it was a great experience working with so many different personalities to get the best performances out of a group of 24 women to form a cohesive and successful team.”

After a few years off, she got into the over 50 ‘open’ GB dragon boat team (which usually only includes male paddlers) in 2018 and is still racing. The actual stroke of dragon boating can be tough on the back and hips – not as symmetric as sculling – but she loves it nonetheless, adding, “There’s great camaraderie in a boat of 20 paddlers; you’ll always find someone you get on with!”

In 2013 she completed Na Wahine O Ke Kai Outrigger race from Molokai to Oahu in Hawaii in a GB crew that included the retired Olympic sculler Guin Batten. The course covers over 42 miles of open ocean. “It’s in a really gnarly channel between the two islands,” she explains, “And you’re paddling for seven hours one with big waves as high as your house. We thought we know what to expect, but paddling on the sea in the UK is totally different to the ocean in Hawaii. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget!”

Reflecting on her varied life in rowing and sport in general, Trisha says, “It’s been and still is an awesome adventure. For me, in the beginning it’s all about understanding the technique, the training, and the psychology so to allow me to be the best I can be and take it to the highest level. However, it’s also shown me it’s so much more than the euphoria of success or the humility when things don’t go to plan; learning the more subtle skills, encountering all sorts of people, and discovering alternative paths in life with amazing and exciting outcomes.”

© Helena Smalman-Smith, 2020.