'Girls can do anything they want to': Female rowers gear up to smash old regatta rules

Ava Bishop was only 10 when she started asking boathouse staff why she'd never be allowed to row the full length of Quidi Vidi Lake.

"Why can't I?" Bishop recalled indignantly asking, to anyone who'd listen. "Why aren't I allowed?"

"That's just the way it's always been done," they'd answer.

"I've always been vocal about that not being a good enough reason," Bishop, now 16, said Tuesday. "Girls can do absolutely anything they want to, and they shouldn't let anyone tell them otherwise."

Bishop is on one of four women's teams making history at the Royal St. John's Regatta this week, as the annual rowing competition sloughs off the limitations it's placed on female athletes since 1816.

Those teams will row the long course — all the way to the end of the lake and back. It's a race traditionally reserved for men, while women were confined to the half course, but the regatta committee decided earlier this year to end gender-based distances.

This year, all teams will have the opportunity to race the short course, which is 1.225 kilometres, and a long course, which 2.45 kilometres.

"I never understood why there would be two different distances for men and women. It didn't make sense to me," said Nancy Beaton, who's rowed the regatta for the past 11 years.

Beaton says the rule also fuelled discriminatory beliefs.

"If youth come into this sport and they're being told that women can only row half the distance that males do, that's something that becomes deeply ingrained without even realizing it," she said. "It's super-important to send that message, that anyone can do any distance, and you get to choose."

The evolution comes with strategic hurdles, though, she adds: training for a long course means pacing yourself.

 "It's a totally