A paddler in her 70s once told me, half-jokingly, that Senior D stood for "Senior Dead." At the time, there was no Senior D category, but there were PLENTY of 70+ folks still paddling hard and vying for spots on Senior C crews. Now that's changed, with the International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF) officially creating a Senior D class. But you may not know how this came to be—and it wasn't easy. In 2017 Canadian Ruth Bedell decided that if she wanted to stay competitive in the sport, rather than be relegated to paddling recreationally, she'd have to create a Senior D class herself. The first hurdle was assembling a team. So she put an ad in her paper, which somehow made the front page, and ended up with 60 interested women aged 68 and older. Now that Ruth had the paddlers, she needed a racing division. So she kept going... and in 2022 her efforts were rewarded with a Senior D division at the Canadian National Championships. But that still wasn't enough... Ruth wanted to see this racing class at the top level. So she kept pushing. 2024 saw the class introduced at the Canadian-American (CanAm) Championships, 2025 at the Pan American (PanAm) Championships, and now finally, the racing class has been adopted by the IDBF. Think you can't change the world. Be like Ruth. And if you think there's no place for you in this sport because you're getting too old... think again. You can now keep racing well into your 70s and 80s WITHOUT having to compete for a seat or the podium against a younger crowd. Curious - does this new worldwide adoption of a Senior D class change your own plans or how your club operates?