SRA Stories: Lidya Acar

Life often has a way of working out even if a new path appears that we haven’t charted out for ourselves. That was the case of Lidya Acar who was a competitive swimmer in middle school. The summer before her freshman year of high school, she broke both her arms, and by the end of her sophomore year she had to leave swimming behind. While disappointed she could no longer competitively swim, Acar had friends who were former swimmers themselves who went on to row at Sammamish Rowing Association. With encouragement from those friends, Acar joined SRA in January 2019 and has been involved in rowing ever since!

Acar became a coxswain for the majority of her rowing career despite having rowed in a few boats, almost exclusively in three seat. After a couple weeks she was put in the coxswain seat. “I knew even before I started that I wanted to cox, just because it seemed right up my alley— being loud, telling people what to do, and being super competitive,” Acar said. She spent her novice season with SRA’s Junior Girls Team and returned intermittently to cox the 5am Masters group in the summers. Additionally, she coached at SRA this past summer.

After her novice year with SRA, Acar coxed for the Junior Boys Team at Green Lake Crew before attending Oregon State University where she coxed for the men’s rowing team all four years. Following her undergraduate graduation, Acar decided to pursue a Masters degree. She applied for a few different schools and succeeded in being accepted into some really fantastic programs. However, she did not feel ready to be done with rowing. The only school where she could continue to cox was the University of Cambridge. The decision was clear and her bags were packed for the United Kingdom!

Cambridge University Boat Club is a historic program dating back to 1828. Many rowers are familiar with the story of CUBC issuing a challenge in 1829 against Oxford University to row a boat race, with the first race held at Henley-on-Thames that year. The event became an annual competition known as The Boat Race and became a staple of British culture and sport.

Training for Acar with CUBC started in August 2025, and they trained all the way up until the first week of April. “I had been coxing the lightweight women's blue boat consistently since January and we had some very successful races, or "fixtures", as they're known in the UK, leading up to the Boat Race,” Acar commented. “Going into the actual race, we knew we were probably the faster crew, but also knew that Oxford would be quite quick off the start, so we were prepared to have a race where we rowed them down from behind.” Acar and her crew trained on the River Thames for ten days leading up to the day of the Lightweight Boat Race on April 3rd. April 3rd rolled around, and at 1:50 pm they were lined up side by side with Oxford. Hearts pounded in their chests, but her crew was prepared.

The weather was beautiful, with wind at about 15 mph with 35+ mph gusts. Acar’s boat was on the Surrey station, which meant that Oxford would have a bend advantage in the first 2 minutes of the race. “We had a good start,” Acar began, “but about 1,000 meters into the race, Oxford took a few seats.” At the four minute mark, both crews had to move to Middlesex (the righthand station) for a large powerboat. “I knew that my boat was going to have to take on most of the wake and wash from the boat, so I asked them to sit up and use their glutes, and even though we were in bigger waves, we really started to move. By the time we came under Hammersmith Bridge, we were about a length up, and our bend advantage hadn't even kicked in yet,” Acar added.

From Hammersmith onwards, their boat just kept moving away. At the Chiswick Eyot, around 13 minutes into the race, the water started to get super choppy. CUBC had arrived in London to train a few days before Oxford’s team, so they had gotten the chance to train in some pretty rough conditions. Oxford had arrived too late into the week to practice with the wind, which proved to be a disadvantage. “I told my boat that the conditions were to our advantage, and we just kept moving away. We ended up winning by 35 seconds over the 6,800 meter course,” Acar said proudly. 

When asked what her favorite rowing memory was, the answer was clear for Acar. “It's hard not to say that winning the Boat Race is a favorite memory. It's obviously a massive event filled with prestige that was a joy to win, but it's also my swan song! This will most likely be my final year coxing, so ending my career with a Boat Race win is a fantastic exclamation point on all the time and effort I've put into rowing over the past eight years,” she said.

Despite being thousands of miles from home, Acar now shares the rowing part of her life with her father. “My dad started rowing because I started rowing,” she said. “He saw how much I loved it, and how good it was for my character, and he decided to join. It's been pretty fun having my dad rowing at the same time as me, because he understands all of the language and the nuance, and I don't have to spend my time explaining the sport to him. I've never coxed my dad, which is probably for the better, but it's been quite fun to see him learn to row and try something new because of me.” Her dad, Tolga Acar, currently rows with our 5am squad. At SRA, we are lucky to have had many parents and their children bond over this amazing sport together at our boathouse.

For now, in addition to being a Boat Race champion, Acar is a full time student, working part time, and training upwards of 25 hours a week. When asked how rowing has impacted her life, there wasn’t just one part that was affected. “I have learned more than I can ever really put into words from rowing,” Acar admitted. “Patience, humility, confidence, discipline, organization, and goal-setting to name a few. I've learned a lot about working with people from all walks of life, including working alongside my best friends and with people who test my patience. I think getting into rowing and sticking with it has genuinely shaped me into the person that I am today.”

For novices, Acar offered some wisdom from her many years of experience. She has coached, coxed, and spent some time in 3 seat so she has really been able to grasp a full picture of what it takes to succeed. “Put yourself in places you might not belong,” she said. “Being around people who challenge you, who have more experience than you, who are better or further along in the sport as you are will always make you better. Especially if you're not afraid to ask questions and be vulnerable enough to learn new things.”

Lidya Acar is a shining example of what happens when you become vulnerable enough to learn new things, whether you meant to be vulnerable or not! From being a competitive swimmer, recovering from significant injuries, and giving rowing a shot— Acar shows the power and beauty behind flexibility and trying new things. Thank you, Lidya, for being a wonderful part of our community and we wish you the best for what is next!

If you are interested in trying new things and learning to row with SRA, check out our options for new rowers on our website under “programs”.