Bromley-by-Bow grandmother and breast cancer survivor heading to World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Team GB

Fifty-eight-year-old grandmother and breast cancer survivor from Bromley-by-Bow, Kate Smith-Coules, is paddling for gold with Team GB at the World Dragon Boat Racing Championships this July.

Kate Smith-Coules, a 58-year-old grandmother and breast cancer survivor from Bromley-by-Bow, is heading to the World Dragon Boat Racing Championships as part of Team GB this July.

Smith-Coules, who works at Bromley-by-Bow Centre health charity and has lived in Tower Hamlets for 40 years, will be competing in the world championship’s first-ever breast cancer category. There are nearly 400 breast cancer dragon boat racing teams worldwide, with the sport promoted as a highly beneficial form of exercise for recovery.

Like many diagnosed with cancer, Smith-Coules’s diagnosis came as an icy shock. 

She had a routine mammogram in 2017, and was told she needed another one. She went to the follow-up appointment in high spirits; her sister had been called back a couple of years before after a mammogram and had got the all-clear. 

Two weeks later, she was on the surgery table. 

For Smith-Coules, it changed everything: ‘You find you have to find a new normal. You have to find some grounding. 

‘How am I going to come through? And just the fear of “Is it gone? Did they get it all?” You know, am I going to be OK?’

Smith-Coules received treatment for five years, including receiving hormone treatment, which triggered early menopause.

‘It was a bit of a mine field; what’s happening to me, my head, my body. Your body changes. […] It’s a lot to deal with.’

It was then, in the midst of her diagnosis and whirlwind of treatment, that dragon boat racing was first mentioned to her. The woman in charge of her return to work, Debbie Southgate, introduced her to the sport. 

Debbie, who was also battling cancer, was part of Wave Walkers, London’s first dragonboat racing group for those affected by cancer, based at the Docklands Sailing and Watersports Centre near Canary Wharf. 

At first, Smith-Coules was hesitant and dismissed the sport as not her thing. Still, Debbie persisted: ‘When I did go back to work, I’d meet Debbie to talk about all the return to work stuff. Then she’d put her pen down and say, “Right, I’ve not seen you Dragon Boating yet”. 

‘She tried every time and I think after the fourth time, she said, just come and get in the boat.’

That’s how she ended up at the Docklands on a miserable, rainy February day: ‘I just thought, what am I doing?

‘Then we took off, and this calm came over me, because you’re so close to the water. You’ve got the water and you’ve got the sky and you’ve got a swan gliding across, or you’ve got the geese flying past you. It just was like meditation on water for me.

‘[Debbie] looked back at me in the boat and she went, do you see what I mean? And I went, I see what you mean. And that was it.’

Since then, Smith-Coules has been unstoppable. She’s attended dragon boat racing competitions across the world, most recently taking home a gold and two silver medals from a competition in Barcelona. With each competition, her confidence has grown: ‘I was quite shy, a shy-ish person. I’d go, I want to travel there, but I need to go with somebody else.

‘Now, I just get in there.’

Her next adventure, the World Dragon Boat Racing Championships in Brandenburg, Germany, begins on 14 July. The week after a tough day of heats, she vividly remembers frantically checking her emails at work as she waited to see if she made the team: ‘My manager came and said, “You’re really jiggling your legs. What’s the matter with you?” I said, I’m waiting. I’m waiting to see if I got in. 

‘It was 10 past five. I said, I’m going to check my emails again and… I went, I GOT IN! And we were both were like AHHHH!’

‘It just feels really surreal. It’s very exciting. And you know what? I’m so honoured. I’m really honoured.’

Since then, it’s been busy: Smith-Coules fundraised over £1,000 to fund her trip, has received all her official kit, and even made an appearance on The One Show a couple of weeks ago.

Smith-Coules’ five children and two grandkids, aged one and four, will be cheering her on from the UK: ‘They’re all just like “go mum, flipping heck, live your life”. They were very, very proud.’

For Smith-Coules, dragon boat racing isn’t just a competition, it’s about living her life on her own terms, and forming a community that each understands what the other has been through: ‘You can swear, you can cry if you’re having a down day or something’s happened. You’re in good company, and you’re in a supportive environment. 

‘You know what? It’s not about death and dying, it’s about living. It’s very much about living and seizing opportunity and seizing adventure.’

Above all, Smith-Coules is thankful to the people who have helped her. Debbie, the woman who started Smith-Coules’s journey in the world of Dragon Boat Racing, passed away in 2021 after her cancer reappeared for a third time. 

‘The lovely lady, Debbie, who kept on at me. If it wasn’t for her doing that, I would not have gone. We all miss her. She was a great, she was just such a beautiful person, optimistic, happy, always smiling, deadpan funny. 

‘I’m just eternally grateful for her pushing me and saying, “Just get in the boat, Kate. Just come and have a go. Hour of your life, what have you got to lose?”’

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