"Sometimes it takes a smaller woman to galvanize the larger ones."
One of the first things you notice about Hilary Cook is that she is petite. Five-foot-three and slight. But that hasn’t stopped her from being a fierce competitor, right in there alongside women as much as a foot taller than she is.
The next thing you notice is that both her knees are pretty banged up. One is scarred from an old skiing injury. She was British Junior Champion in the giant slalom at age 14. She skied competitively, representing England in the World Student Games and the Europa Competition. The other knee is sewn up with stitches because she was knocked off her bicycle while riding home from rowing practice in London. She landed on a sharp rock and split open her knee. But that hasn’t stopped her from coming to compete. "I’ve only been allowed to row today," she tells me, the day before the start of competition. "I’ve only just been able to move it."
Cook is competing in seven events with her teammates who represent a variety of rowing clubs from London, Scotland, and Denmark. She has competed in a Masters regatta every year since 1990. For the two years it was held in Australia and Canada, she opted to row in the European Masters instead, but all the others have been FISA World competitions. What makes her row? "Rowing is addictive. It’s all about training with people I care about. We train very hard and we race in Britain quite often but with the focus of coming to the Masters."
Cook started rowing in her second year at Oxford University. After graduating, she came to the United States where she had earned a one year scholarship for graduate work. "My area of study was leisure, but I came mainly to ski in the Rockies," she confesses. Then she went to the Edinburg University in Scotland "where I rowed a bit but mostly skied." Then reality hit. After seven years of being a student, she got a "real" job as an investment analyst. It was at this point that she got back to rowing in earnest. She was 25- years-old. She rowed competitively in a double scull and a pair as a lightweight.
Now 48, she hopes to be rowing into her eighties and beyond. She has just retired from the financial world and "now all I’m going to do is row and sail," she says. We should all be so lucky.
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