Sarah

Have you ever got so worked up about something that it’s a real struggle to express yourself coherently on the subject? So angry that whenever anyone brings it up all you want to do is scream YOU’RE WRONG, YOU’RE SO SO WRONG! and wave your arms about at them in fury? Just me?

Anyway, this is how I often feel about the portrayal of women’s sport in the media. If you want to read a more eloquent and far funnier take on this issue see here but I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and say my piece. Get ready for some shouty capitalisation.

I’m a rower. That means I get up at stupid o’clock 4 mornings a week and spend half my time in the gym or a soul destroying rowing machine and the other half in the freezing cold on the river. But I love it. It’s grim, yes, but it gives you a feeling of accomplishment and worthwhile-ness that nothing else can. Rowing is a very ‘all or nothing’ sport. I dedicate what sometimes seems like my whole life to it. You have NO IDEA how much it pisses me off when someone asks me “why I bother, since the boys will always be better. I mean, they could beat you in a race.” When someone compares girls rowing to “a giant game of pooh sticks”, or tells you your eight looked like “driftwood”, or when the boys get a trophy for ...