When the Ironwomen lifeguards row their 300-pound surfboat into the ocean at next year’s national championship in Daytona Beach, it will be the final leg of a race for equality that Wrightsville Beach lifeguard Lindsey Gerkens has been running for years, culminating in November when she successfully campaigned to include rowing in the sport’s premier event.
“Women were told all along that it was because the surfboats were too dangerous for women to row alone, that not enough women knew how to row, that not enough women wanted to row, that adding the row leg for women would simply take up too much time in the tournament and even that insurance rates will go up,” said Gerkens, who won the 2016 Ironwoman national championship in the 30-34 age group for Wrightsville Beach Ocean Rescue (WBOR). “This event is the most impressive race at the national champions. If the women can do this with the guys, it says something for gender equality.”
In competitive lifeguarding, the national championships culminate with the Ironman, a challenging sprint race combining a run, swim, paddle and row. There’s been an Ironwoman race as well, only with no leg for rowing. Gerkens said she wanted her chance to truly compete in this event, and after more than a year of traveling the country and rallying support, she was part of a group of women who helped convince the U.S. Lifesaving Association (USLA) to add the challenging rowing leg to the Ironwoman event.
The association board’s unanimous Nov. 5 vote came after it rejected the same proposal in 2015, despite Gerkens working with other lifeguards and attending a regional meeting in Florida to advocate the idea.
“At that point, I realized that we would need a voice at the national meetings in order to get the change we were seeking,” Gerkens said. She worked to be named a delegate for the South Atlantic region for the following year.
She attended the spring 2016 meeting in Pennsylvania, where she said she still met resistance, but was encouraged to find more delegates supporting the proposal.
In the meantime, Gerkens said supporters were working around the country to get more female lifeguards interested in rowing and add rowing legs to Ironwoman competitions in local and regional tournaments to show interest.
Gerkens, a leading competitor for the WBOR team with 21 years of experience in lifeguarding tournaments, acknowledges the Ironwoman event is potentially dangerous, especially for those that haven’t trained.
“It requires a lot of strength, it’s a waterman’s ability,” Gerkens said.
But she also knows that it’s within women’s abilities to compete in the event, something she proved 12 years ago in New Jersey when she successfully fought to have rowing added to the women’s Ironwoman in local contests. Then, she trained other women to handle the heavy boats, and women are still competing in the full Ironwoman event in New Jersey.
Working with Renea Jackson, a California-based lifeguard who Gerkens described as an equally committed advocate, Gerkens prepared for the 2016 national meeting in Denver, Colorado. The two brought a list of top female competitors ready, willing, and capable of competing in the event, along with 14 copies of the petition that included 371 signatures from USLA members in 27 different states.
So far, Gerkens said 35 women from around the country have committed to training for the full Ironwoman event.
“I’ve had female athletes around the country tell me they are already practicing their rowing in anticipation of the event,” Gerkens said. “I am very much looking forward to competing in the event myself.”
Krys Estes contributed to this story.
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