European Rowing Championships: Erin Kennedy returns exactly one year after cancer diagnosis

Kennedy (left) won European gold in 2022 three months after her cancer diagnosis

The date will always be etched in her mind.

Wednesday 25 May 2022 was the date Erin Kennedy was diagnosed with breast cancer. But in 2023, 25 May is a day to celebrate, the start of her first competition - the European Rowing Championships - back in the boat.

It's a year that has pushed coxswain Kennedy - a Paralympic champion in the mixed coxed four - harder than any race. Fifteen rounds of chemotherapy followed her diagnosis, as well as a double mastectomy in January, but in March, the 30-year-old was given the all-clear.

"Getting selected for the Europeans is something I've been working towards for almost a year, and it's really emotional to be back here and thinking about what I've come through and where we are now," she told BBC Breakfast.

"My grandad always used to call me 'little miss independent'. I was like, 'I'm going to do everything I can to get back and get on to the international stage again', but the reality is there were so many uncontrollables in this situation.

"I was 29 when I was diagnosed completely out of the blue and while I've had an amazing team at British Rowing and my oncologists, the reality is that I had to have treatment, I had to have this mastectomy and I didn't know whether I'd make it back.

"I've been doing everything I can and I've been working so hard to make this day possible."

'How am I going to get the best out of every day?'

Kennedy, also a two-time world champion, will cox the crew of Frankie Allen, Giedre Rakauskaite, Ed Fuller and Morgan Fice-Noyes in Bled, Slovenia.

British Rowing is taking a 62-strong squad to the Europeans, including double Olympic champion Helen Glover in the women's four for what will be her first international flat water race since the Tokyo Games in 2021.

For Kennedy, it caps another full circle given her last competition prior to taking a break for treatment was the previous edition of the Europeans in Munich in August, where she led her crew to gold.

Discussing the difficulties of the last year, Kennedy said: "I always used to say to my athletes 'choose your mood when you wake up every day', and then I really had to put my money where my mouth is and go 'OK, how am I going to wake up every day, how am I going to get the best out of every day?'

"Sometimes the best every day was essentially getting out of bed and on to the sofa, and having a little bit of fresh air. Some of those days were coming into training, getting on the bike, doing exercise, lifting weights.

"It really varied and I had to see where I was every day, but I had a real focus on a long-term goal and just tried to make small steps towards it."

Throughout her treatment and recovery, Kennedy has documented those steps on Instagram in a bid to increase the conversation about cancer.

In the UK, one in two people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, while one in seven women will develop breast cancer.

"It's something everyone is really scared about," Kennedy said. "I wanted to destigmatise the conversation a little bit, bring people inside what it was actually like to be 29, be as fit and healthy as you possibly can be, but still be diagnosed with cancer.

"I wanted to document it, for myself and also to bring people with me and explain if you do get a diagnosis, it's not the end of your life.

"It is not the reason to stop doing things you love."

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