Top RoweRs
rUMY:
of sport and family
her goal was to become the first female single sculler to win a european title
in the new millennium. Rumyana neykova of Bulgaria made that goal reality
in poland last september.
6
Rumy, as she is commonly called in her
home country, came back to elite rowing at
Amsterdam’s Rowing World Cup last June
after taking the 2006 season off to have her
second child, Mario. But it was only in Munich,
at the World Rowing Championships, that she
began to row her way back to the podium,
winning all initial rounds and finishing with
silver behind long-standing rival Ekaterina
Karsten.
Getting back in form after baby number two
was “very difficult” she says. It was “easier to
restore muscle quality” the first time. The
first time was six years ago. Rumy started
rowing again four months after giving birth
to firstborn Emile. She then grabbed World
Championship gold later that year (in 2002)
ahead of Ekaterina Karsten and in the process
set a new World Best Time which still stands
today. Emile, she, feels, was “a bonus both
physically and mentally”. One year later, in
2003, she scored gold again, this time ahead
of Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski.
her intention. But while in Munich, qualifying
for the Olympics was her only focus: “I’ll
qualify first and will then start thinking about
strategies,” is what she replied when asked
about her dream of becoming an Olympic
champion.
©2007 Getty Images / Vladimir Rys
At Munich, Rumy demonstrated that she is
once again a major force to be reckoned with
in the single sculling field. Yet she still had more
to prove. A mere three weeks after peaking at
the worlds, she went on to race at the first
EuropeanRowingChampionships held in
over thirty years, and confirmed her refound
form was no fluke. “It was very difficult to find
motivation for another major event again,”
she says. But she did, and won a rectangular-shaped championship gold medal.
The trio of Rumy, Karsten and Rutschow-Stomporowski dominated the podium from
1999 until Rutschow-Stomporowski retired
following the 2004 Olympics, where Rumy
won her second Olympic medal - bronze.
Silver was the colour in Sydney and with
Beijing looming ahead, taking that elusive
Olympic gold medal back home to Bulgaria is
So, what is it like to be a mother and train
for the Olympic Games? ˝Being a competitor
and a mother are two very different things,”
she answers. “But it is possible to combine
both. You cannot only consider rowing in life
- there are other things to care about. What if
I had continued rowing until the age of 30 or
32 alone? Then what?” >>
