Beth Gill is a world title winning canoe sprint athlete studying for a PhD at the University of Nottingham, and will be competing in her first competition of the year for the university at the 2025 BUCS Wild Water Racing Championships on the 15th and 16th November. After coming back from serious injury, we spoke to Beth about her journey into canoeing and her mindset for the year ahead, as well as her path towards the next Olympic Games.
Great to meet you Beth! Can you tell me a bit about yourself and how you got into your sport?
Sure, I used to play hockey at an international level, and initially thought that’s what I was going to do. Then there was a Girls4gold programme, where they take you from one sport and try you in another one, and I said "Okay, I'll give it a go" and dove into canoeing. I was 18 at the time, put university on hold, put hockey on hold and it snowballed from there. I said I'll see how it goes for a year and then I can always go back to hockey if I want to but I just stayed in canoeing - I'm a bit stubborn like that! I was falling in all the time initially but I got hooked on it. I had to master it and moved to Nottingham to do that full time.
It's a very different sport but it's nice how we get to see the world from a vantage point, just being able to go all over the world and see towns and cities just from the river. We train a lot in Seville and so we get to just paddle through the middle of the city.
What was it about the sport that you enjoyed that made you pursue it further?
I think there was probably an element of a challenge to it, and I don’t completely know the answer as to why I stuck with it. It was a surprise to a lot of people you know, I love my hockey, and I remember when I said to people, I'm going to defer university and do canoeing everyone was questioning that decision. However, it didn't even cross my mind not to, and so I think sometimes that things happen for a reason. I don’t know why but I didn’t even think about it twice. I think from there, even with all the ups and downs, I've been quite relentless. I can't say exactly what it is, but I do enjoy being in the boat when it all clicks. You just get this flow where the boat just runs across the water and everything's moving in the right way. We train a lot on the Trent and when the sun is rising you just get this mist across the water and herons flying in front of you and you're surrounded by wildlife and the view. Sometimes I wish I could capture it and show people. Those moments are really special and then to be able to do that with other people in the team - we have a really great group that train out of the club and it’s just nice to share that with them.
However, sometimes it’s horrible, windy, rainy and cold, and you just feel like nothings clicking and you think what am I doing?! But, there are those other times where you do get it right and the conditions are on your side and you realise - okay this is why I'm doing this.
How do you feel coming up to the BUCS Wild Water Racing Championships?
So, it's in river racing and for a sprinter like me that’s probably like asking a track cyclist to go and do a mountain bike race - but it is in a boat and there's probably a few skills I can transfer! When you compare river races to sprints and the skills needed, I'm a princess - I want the lovely flat water, the straight lines, everything to go to plan, and that’s probably the opposite of what you get river racing. I think, if I am able to transfer some of the skills and contribute to the event, it'll be a great experience with a good group of people - we'll see what happens! It might be that I can't transfer some skills to it, but I also might be able to take something from this discipline into my own so it should be a good experience.
How do you feel about competing this year in terms of BUCS?
Under canoeing we've got several different disciplines, and we do canoe sprint or the longer distances at a similar time to BUCS Big Wednesday, however it’s a one-off weekend with multiple different events anywhere from 200m, 500m, 1000m, to 5k. All on ideally flat water and that’s my thing so I'm really looking forward to that. Last year I think we collected the most medals we've ever had at that event, and as a squad we collected the same number of points that teams are collecting over a whole season just at that weekend. My boyfriend is also a kayaker, so he'll be there as well and it’s just nice to rally everyone together and collect as many points as possible. I think because we achieved such a cool thing last year, there's an element of always wanting to be better.
What are you aims for the future, competition wise?
For me - it’s the Olympics. I've won world titles before, but I had quite a big injury last year, so this past year has been about getting back on those start lines, rebuilding, and just getting experience and enjoying it. Our qualifying for the 2028 Olympic Games starts this year, which is slightly different for us. It's normally been a one-off event a year before the Games but this time we have a qualifying window where we need to race multiple competitions and the best results count. From April we have a 3-year window and need to race 3 World Cups, a European Championship and a World Championship a year. The other challenge is that it's not confirmed yet, so as athletes we are still waiting for how we actually will do it. What we do know is that every race will count from next year, which is both exciting and nerve-racking, normally we get a few more years to gradually build but this is slightly different.
You mentioned you had a serious injury, can you tell me more about it?
I basically tore a few things in my shoulder. I had a very similar injury about 5 or 6 years ago, but everything was going really well and I was probably in the best shape I had been in. It was the run up to the 2024 Olympic Games and our shot at qualifying in April but in February my shoulder went. I was in a really exciting place, so I tried to hold on for as long as possible. I knew that it needed surgery, but you almost have to put that to one side to try and hit the end goal. One day it was alright, and the next day it wasn't quite there. It gradually got worse until in the end I was just taping it to hold it all together, but it didn’t hold out and it got to the point where the surgeon just went - I'll see you in two weeks. That was in the May and it took a good 6 to 8 months to get back on the water. I was very lucky I had one of the world’s best surgeons looking after me, so I had a lot of trust in that and then it was up to me and my team to get it back to where it needed to be able to go overhead. It got to Christmas of that year and I got back onto the water and it was about just building it back gradually from there.
How did it feel having an injury at such an exciting time in your life/career?
I remember we were away on a training camp at Seville, and Dan and I had gone for a coffee and a walk to get some headspace. I remember saying this could be really exciting as we were both in fantastic place. However, Dan also then got really ill. We both got glandular fever and at the time we didn’t know, and he was just getting slower and slower, so this was all just happening at the same time. It just all started to unravel and mentally it was quite hard, you're just trying to hold it together and I was just constantly thinking about that end goal. I needed to be careful with my body and how I was managing it but you're trying to go after the biggest achievements you can get to, so I was trying to box things away in different compartments.
I suppose it was difficult to watch the games in Paris, but at the same time really enjoy sport. That time also gave us an opportunity to enjoy the summer where our holiday wasn’t just revolved around canoeing.
However, we just love the sport! Even in our week that we went away, Dan just went out on boats with his friend and saw dolphins when we visited in Gibraltar. That’s the thing with this sport, we wouldn’t be able to just go and do that if we didn’t do it, and I think that’s the real positive of what we do.
What are you studying and why?
Originally, I wanted to study Engineering but deferred and transferred to Natural Sciences which gave me opportunities to look at a lot more routes. I ended up doing more Biosciences and Environmental Sciences that ran parallel to the fact I was training more and more in the river, and seeing things going on in the river alongside my degree. The two sort of funnelled me in a similar direction and then an opportunity for a PhD through a supervisor opened up as they were also interested in my canoeing background. My PhD is within microbiology looking at bacteria within the water that may come as a result of either sewage, agriculture, run-off and those that are resistant to antibiotic. It’s all quite intertwined but interesting at the same time!
Why did you choose the University of Nottingham?
I ended up in Nottingham through canoeing and my brother did his undergraduate degree at the University and he was just like "Beth why don’t you apply?" He just had such good reviews about it including the sport aspect here at Nottingham, and I transferred my credits over as I was actually doing an online course at the Open University at the time. I'm quite an analytical thinker so if I wasn't doing something else on the side, I'd just be reviewing all of my training. There's a line where that becomes unhelpful, so this gives me something else to put my thoughts towards. Phil Wood (Scholarship and Recruitment Manager) was very supportive of the route to getting in and then once I was here, guided me through both the ups and the downs and it's been part of my world for a while now.
What are your goals/aims in the future?
Obviously, I would like to complete my PhD, but that is a while off! If in 10 years’ time if I could be world-champion, Olympian and a doctor then I'd say that'd be a great achievement! My big thing is that I just try and open as many doors as possible and then the one that excites me the most - go through those. The route that I've ended up taking is not the route that anybody would have expected at school. Some people do know exactly what they want to do next, and I think that’s great, but a lot of people don’t. I think it’s just about normalising it and making sure that you're enjoying what you're doing. I do like to keep making progress and keep that momentum because that way you're always looking for the next step. It might be that something comes up and actually really excites me, and I'm quite stubborn so when I start something I like to finish it, but equally with these opportunities there's an element where I can go - why not try it? If it’s not right for me in the end then that’s okay, you can look at something else. It doesn't have to be a perfect linear direction.
How do you find balancing your studies whilst training and competing?
On the whole I have really enjoyed having both and as it’s nice to have something else to put my mind towards. There are also times where it all comes together at once and feels almost so overwhelming you don’t know where to start. You can sit down with the best intention to do something but either the energy is not there or there's just too much going on. I've been doing things in the past where I've maybe tried to do things to please other people and that’s something I still struggle with, but if I'm doing it for me, it’s because I want to achieve the goals that I'm setting out to achieve. I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone but myself. It’s the same for the academic side of things - I don’t have to do it but I'm choosing to do it. If everything's all happening at the same time, it’s about taking a moment to go I'm doing this for me so I'm going to do it at my pace.
Has studying been a good distraction whilst injured?
I think it’s a really interesting one that I can look back on and go - things do line up for a reason. When the PhD first came up, it started in April time so I was initially quite concerned about the timing of that. I asked if it was possible to defer that start time until after the Olympic Games but then the injury came up and it all happened a similar time. I had the injury and I wasn’t able to go to the games. I had surgery in May, and the PhD was starting just after that. In the end it gave me something fresh and new in the summer to put my mind towards. It actually worked out really well to have that and to have something to put focus on when I was injured. Otherwise, I was rehabbing in Nottingham where there was no one else around so that added a little bit of stretch of normality to what would have probably been a very challenging summer.
Do you have any advice for people wanting to come/study at Nottingham? Or advice for people only just starting university?
As a starting point, sport is a great way to be able to meet other people, and you never know where it can go. You can communicate with other people, and you don't even have to be able to speak the same language. It brings people together and it can be that spark to start conversation. It's something that can break up the week, break up the day, and get you out and meeting people you wouldn’t meet other wise. When I started canoeing my friends were all still playing international hockey, and I was just falling in and out of the water and it led to something really special. I imagine it can be quite daunting but if you don’t enjoy it after a while - that’s fine there will always be something else. It’s just about opening as many doors as possible and picking the one that excites you the most. If you're having fun and you're motivated to do something, I think they're both really important things. Just try different things and one of them will work!
We thank Beth for her time and would like to wish her the best of luck representing the University of Nottingham, and look forward to following her journey towards the Olympics and her PhD.
You can find out more about our canoe programme here; Performance Canoe, and you can find out more about the sports scholarship programme at the University of Nottingham here; Sports Scholarships at the University of Nottingham.