My husband died of a cardiac arrest during a boat race, but I still see the beauty of rowing

Telegraph

13-04-2025

'He mentioned rowing even before he gave me his telephone number,' recalls Sarah Senior of the night she and her late husband, Tim, an oarsman, met at a jazz night in London's 100 Club.
'I'd always thought rowers were handsome boys, and his mischievous smile attracted me. But he was off on a rowing camp the next day, so I thought nothing of it,' she says.
The year was 1998, Sarah was 29 and a midwife, Tim was 28 and a civil servant. He would pursue her – post-camp – and two years later, they got married. A river would always run through their relationship from there on in. But tragedy struck when Tim, then the chairman of The Boat Race Company, died of a cardiac arrest at the Henley Fours and Eights Head in February 2023.
Tim had discovered rowing as an undergraduate at Nottingham University, then rowing through a master's at the University of Cambridge. Moving to London, he joined Cygnet Rowing Club, and then London Rowing Club on Putney Embankment. After doing a DPhil at Oxford, he and Sarah settled just outside the town, and he eventually landed at Upper Thames Rowing Club.
They welcomed their first child, Max, in 2000, Alex two years later, and then Lottie two years after that. Happy family years rolled past, against the steady rhythm of rowing life. But Sarah remained steadfastly immune to the sport's charms. 'When Tim lived at Putney boathouse, I'd wake up beside the river sometimes and be tempted. But I liked lying in too…'
Instead, she took up the support role, providing the sandwiches and general cheering section of a non-rowing partner or parent and sacrificing weekends to 'head to Nottingham or London to watch them race by for five minutes'.
This continued when the boys took up rowing at school. Both rowed to a high level; Alex representing Team GB. Lottie, a non-rower, enjoyed running down the towpath while Tim was rowing, and then having coffee together afterwards. 'That was special to her,' says Sarah.
Henley Royal Regatta was a yearly highlight for Tim, particularly in 2021, when both he and Max competed there at the same time. At 50, racing for the Thames Challenge Cup in an Upper Thames B eight, he was part of the oldest crew ever to win a Henley race.
'I remember the commentator saying, '…and here's Tim Senior – why doesn't he give up?'' laughs Sarah. Was there ever any thought that he would give it up? 'It was never going to happen. He would have been in a boat till he was 100.'
Pacing his sons spurred Tim on. 'He liked it when they got better than him, and he didn't because he was so competitive. But one of the reasons they did so well was because they had him telling them what to do,' says Sarah.
Having trialled for the Oxford Blue Boat and come close, Tim was delighted when he became chairman of The Boat Race Company in 2021. 'For him, it was the next best thing. I remember him being on the phone all the time, sorting out sponsors, kit and just trying to keep both boats happy. He also helped to establish a bursary to support young people with limited access to rowing.'
What would he have made of this year's controversy around rower eligibility? 'He was for whatever was fair. I suspect he would have tried to be very diplomatic about it,' Sarah notes, with equal diplomacy.
In February 2023, Tim was busy: managing a full-time job with investment banking company Macquarie, his Boat Race role, and rowing with an older 'masters' crew, known affectionately as 'dad's army'. With a family history of heart disease – his father, who is still alive, had a triple bypass at 51 and his mother had the heart rhythm disorder atrial fibrillation – Tim might have been cautious. But then neither of his parents had led the active life that he did. Certainly, there were no indications of a problem – other than a stomach ache the night before he was due to race.
'I thought it was indigestion,' says Sarah. 'I now understand that when the heart is doing funny things you can get a 'referred' pain. The other thing I remember was that he was quite tired, but again, I put that down to being busy.'
Sarah was flying to Canada to see her brother with Lottie that same day, their paths crossing over briefly with Tim, who had just flown back from South Africa. He was in bed when they left for the airport. 'I hadn't wanted to wake him, so I didn't say goodbye. He was insistent about phoning when we got to the airport. He'd said, 'I just love you so much. We need to slow down a bit.' Then we got on the flight.'
The Henley Fours and Eights Head course runs 3,000m (3,281 yards) along a genteel stretch of the Thames, ending at the Royal Regatta finish. It was a race Tim had done before, and crossing the line as winners, he was pleased but noted to his crew they should have 'pushed themselves harder'. Paddling back to the boathouse, Tim had a heart attack in the boat, triggering cardiac arrest.
'A nurse and a paramedic in another boat had the defibrillator on him straight away, and that gives me some peace, because I don't feel like more could have been done,' says Sarah. 'There are many instances, though, where people don't get treatment quickly enough.'
'Tim died at 12.25pm in the hospital. But we didn't know until we got to Canada. My brother Michael was waiting at the airport gate, and when he told us, I heard someone howling – then I realised it was me.'
They booked the next flight home. 'I remember everything being on his desk, just as he left it. At first, you're numb. I remember reading people's letters and thinking, 'Oh my God, who are they writing about? Why am I getting these flowers?' It was total shock.
'At the funeral the rowers all came in rowing jackets and there was colour everywhere; the memorial was held at Upper Thames and the club bought a boat and named it Tim Senior.'
Tim's death was a result of underlying ischemic heart disease, something he was unaware of.
'People say that you don't forget grief, you just grow around it. And that's happening slowly. I'm not there yet, but memories that made me cry make me smile now. This has brought us all very close though, and I want to make sure that we never forget who Tim was and how much he loved us.'
For Sarah, now a GP practice nurse, the 'new normal' is a long road. 'I was weirdly relieved to go back to work,' she says. 'Tim always said, 'Do what makes you happy' though, so I'm retraining as a doula. Life is short and you only have so long to do things.'
'The Boat Race is a nice connection that we have to him as a family at this time of year,' says Sarah. The boys continue to do sponsored runs for the British Heart Foundation (BHF), which is the Boat Race's charity partner this year – its BHF-funded CureHeart research project aims to find the world's first cures for inherited heart muscle diseases. The family will watch the race together as they always have. They will also present the Senior Cup, created in Tim's memory for the men's and women's Veterans Boat Races, which take place the day before.
In March, the death of another rower on the same 4.3-mile Tideway stretch at the Vesta International Masters Head on which the Boat Race crews compete highlighted the importance of preventative health checks – particularly for older athletes.
'As a sports person, you're fit, you don't smoke, you haven't got diabetes, so you think you're fine. But you don't know what's going on inside your body, and a blood test and blood pressure reading might save your life,' says Sarah.
'Tim's resting heart rate was 40bpm – he never thought of himself at risk of heart disease. He was always too busy to go for a check-up; I wonder whether it would have changed things if he had.'
Sarah and Lottie still meet Tim's crew for tea after their outings, sometimes sitting on Tim's eight-seat memorial bench by Upper Thames, overlooking the water.
She smiles: 'I always saw rowing as a bit 'here we go again', but I now get the beauty and why he loved it so much.' On the bench is an inscription for a rower, as timeless as river ripples on a sharp spring day: Better a bad day on the water than a good day in the office.
Cardiac arrest: Signs and treatment
A cardiac arrest is when the heart has suddenly stopped, and blood is no longer being pumped around the body. It's caused by an abnormal heart rhythm (arrhythmia) due to the heart's electrical system not working properly. It is different from a heart attack, where there's a sudden loss of blood flow to the heart muscle, but the heart will still be beating.
Someone in cardiac arrest will be unconscious and unresponsive, not breathing or not breathing normally, possibly making gasping sounds and have no pulse. The chances of survival more than double with timely CPR and defibrillation; public-access defibrillators check heart rhythm to tell you when to administer a shock, while the British Heart Foundation's digital CPR tool RevivR teaches lifesaving CPR in 15 minutes.