18 Mar 2021
World title and British record for sporty vet who only turned to indoor rowing to fill a void during lockdown.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
Vanessa Waite broke the British record for the fastest 500m sprint (W30-39).
A vet has claimed a world title and British record in the World Rowing Indoor Championships – having only taken up the sport to fill a pandemic lockdown void.
Vanessa Waite, clinical director of London’s Vet4Life practices, claimed a world crown in the competition after only a few weeks of preparation.
She said: “I was ecstatic. It’s certainly been an amazing few weeks and so rewarding.
“Claiming gold in the world championships with a time of 1 minute 30 seconds was unbelievable in itself.
“Then my partner checked my time and informed me I had also smashed the British record, so I now hold the world title and the British record for the fastest 500m sprint (W30-39). We absolutely had a celebration after that with some nicely chilled champagne.”
Dr Waite has a pedigree in athletics, rugby and basketball, and has been a Welsh champion discuss thrower. She represented Wales at rugby and played league basketball in England.
But when organised sport came to a halt again with the new lockdown rules, she looked for a new challenge to fill the gap.
She said: “When lockdown happened, I was extremely thankful that myself and my partner had already built a home gym, which included a rowing machine.”
Dr Waite added: “John challenged me to do a 500m sprint on the rowing machine and I got a pretty decent time of 1 minute 35 seconds, so he decided to enter me in the British indoor championships.
“I only had two weeks to train for it, but I managed to win the gold medal with a time of 1 minute 32 seconds, which felt incredible.
“So, I then entered the world championships. This time it was a much harder challenge as I knew I would need a massive improvement on my time to pull it off. I wanted to get down to 1 minute 30 seconds, so I did a six-week intensive weight training and rowing schedule.”
She felt low at times during the tough training, but the twice-daily sessions paid off.
She said: “I had put a lot of pressure on myself and there was a time when I wanted to quit. I cried and I felt very low, but luckily I had my partner and a few friends supporting me with training, and they joined me in the sessions via Zoom and lifted me back up again.
“Then came the big day and it couldn’t have gone any better. All that effort, stress and strain was totally worth it.”
