RABBIT'S GUIDE TO HENLEY ROYAL REGATTA
 | HENLEY PICS |
Your annual dose of Hello! magazine...
http://www.twrc.rowing.org.uk/slug/hello/04hrrhello.htm(Apols for any name typos - it's been a long week|)
Lots more photos and news to follow
| OH WHAT A LOVELY BUOY |
Competitors at Richmond Regatta should hopefully have had less difficulty in distinguishing the course from the navigation channel this year, thanks to the joint investment by the Twickenham and Richmond regatta committees in the purchase of sixteen shiny new fluorescent pink marker buoys.The Twickenham S4 8o were acutely aware of the edge of course markings, and had a particularly fine view of the Middlesex side of the buoys as they careered off the start, and down the navigation channel (rudder allegedly bent, apparently). The crew sportingly conceded afterwards that the umpire had not actually ‘promptly disqualified’ them, but had in fact given them ‘loads of time’ to return to the course, before the red flag came out.
Meanwhile, at the finish, Orion RC were obviously so distracted by the pretty buoys that they lost all concentration on their rowing, and managed to roll their coxed four right in front of the enclosure. (OK, there might have been a couple of canoeists somewhere in there as well.)
Safety Boat No.1 was promptly on the scene, and whisked the crew off to enjoy their very own personal wet t-shirt competition, with no obvious ill effects. Safety Boat No. 2 was left to recover the boat, and made much better progress after they decided to turn it the right way up again before trying to tow it. As they headed back to the boating area, with four alongside their boat such that their engine was amidships of the shell, rather than astern of it, at least one observer did wonder whether or not they had heard of the RYA Powerboat Handling award scheme…..
Ahem...
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n.b. longterm Slug readers may realise that Orionaren't the first crew to capsize a IV at Richmond regatta - Thames managed it back in 2001.
| HENLEY DRAW |
http://www.hrr.co.uk/thisyear/draw.htm.
| WHERE ARE THEY NOW? |
The accompanying photograph was taken at the recent US IRAs in Camden, New Jersey.
The photographer reports he was made aware of its presence by a pack of drunk coaches yelling
"you gotta take a picture of the portajohn" at him.Harsh...
| QUAL-ITY |
Crews heading to Henley qualifiers on Friday afternoon were met by sun and almost perfect conditions for racing, as a result there were no great surprises and non qualifying crews had only themselves to blame for not being fast enough...
More surprising were some of the crews who were prequalified, the black art of crew selection used by the Stewards sometimes appears more like the HRR lottery and this year was no exception. Indeed friday saw half of the GB lwt VIII having to qualify for their slot in the Visiors because they'd entered as a composite of their home clubs (TSS and Wallingford) and weren't recognised for who they were (we can only assume they hadn't pointed out their credentials in the entry cover letter), whilst Upper Thames Novice crew who'd entered the Thames cup simply to get the experience of doing qualifiers, found themselves pre-selected...
Plaintive cries of "You've made a terrible mistake, make them qualify" from UTRC captain Syd Rand, were merely greeted by a firm response that the Stewards decision is final.
Also qualifying yesterday - and looking a little quilty about wearing lycra, was UL coach Tim Foster, who had to sub into the UL vistors four to replace an ill crew member. A source from UL told the slug "He's done no training for years and is really unfit, we think it's all a ploy to publicise his new book".
After the Lucerne WC results last weekend, the GB hwt VIII have apparently withdrawn from the Grand, the Dutch VIII were coming over because they wanted to race them, but whether they now also pull out, remains to be seen.
Elsewhere at the regatta, those watching the rowing over a drink at the Remenham club were surprised to spot BBC sports reporter Steve Rider on the mound with a group of other short people (not watching the rowing).Feeling the need to inspect non-members for suitability, the rabbit went over for a closer look to see if his hair really is plastic, though we had to advise Mr Rider that throwing the rabbit in the river would not be a good idea as the rabbit has lots of friends over 6 foot 5...
Qualifying results are available HERE
| MODEL ROWERS? |
For those of you wondering "who were those mystery rowers scattered through the Henley Women's Regatta programme this year?"...well, the Slug can inform you that they are in fact, four girls from the Furnivall women's squad.One of the four discovered that their images had been used (from the Getty image library) when she checked-in her crew for Intermediates eights on Friday.
The Furnivall women's squad had a crew in a WHR final (Intermediate fours) for the first time this year, showing they are not just a pretty face....
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| LOOK-A-LIKE |
JUICE
LOVE ALLSlug,
Has anyone noticed the amazing resemblance between
upcoming British tennis star Alex Bogdanovic,
who recently qualified for Wimbledon, and prodigal
child rower Ben "the boy" Thompson who...er...Are they, perchance, related?
Curious of Mortlake
| HWR RACE FOOTAGE |
UTRC member Russell Stynes has just started a new business providing video footage to sportspeople (primarily rowers at this stage). He and his team videoed almost all of the starts and finishes for Women's Henley last weekend and competitors can order their choice of the availble races on DVD from him at a very reasonable price.http://www.onboardfilming.com/index.html
Crews can also commission him to come and do an hour of videoing of a training outing -- real slow motion capture so that you can really see what is going on (not just bog standard videoing as they've invested in some very fancy hardware and software to improve the usefulness of what gets captured).
They recently did some filming for the Olympic Women's quad through one camera mounted above on the stern, two more on 1 metre booms sticking out from the boat (so that you can see the looms) and another from the side.
It all gets quite technical but all four views can be transmitted back to the coach who sits comfortably in his 4x4 watching it live through a dashboard mounted TV!
| UTRC REGATTA BALL |
UTRC REGATTA BALL - Saturday 3rd July 2004, 7:30pm - Midnight
The excitement is mounting, the weather is getting warmer, the lycra count is rising and its time to get your plans together for the Saturday night of Henley Royal Regatta:
Whilst Stewards is heaving with non-rowers and Remenham club is three deep at the bar (note that ALL Remenham tickets are sold out for Saturday), , the tow path so full that people are falling off into the river (the ones that can still stand that is) and it's generally getting rather grungy out there.... be the envy of everyone at the UTRC Regatta Ball!
Ten reasons why:
How can you buy a ticket? Well, you'll need to hurry as time & tickets are running out; for full information and ordering instructions visit the UTRC website.
- Tickets limited to a comfortable 150 for Saturday night
- Good quality nosh provided by Clark's caterers included in the ticket price
- A lively band to get you dancing to midnight
- Clubhouse and marquee facilities ensuring that you're warm and dry even if it rains
- We don't rip you off at the bar!
- It's the best spot on the river to view the fireworks and observe the chaos on the towpath
- Security to keep out the riff-raff
- Another chance to celebrate the club's 40th year since formation
- Compare stories, celebrate your triumphs or mourn your decline and reminisce on 'how fast we used to be' with other rowers
- You don't want to hear about all the fun second hand!
| WORLD CUP 2004 |
No, not Euro 2004, but the one at Lucerne....Incase you hadn't spotted them, as well as a gold for the GB women's quad there were a couple of notable result for several Tideway women:
The Women's 4- only had three crews entered, the Danes, the senior GB crew and the women's U23's. The U23 crew beat both the senior crew and the Danes to take first place and were Natasha PAGE, Beth RODFORD (Thames), Anna BEBINGTON and Alison KNOWLES (Thames). The U23 girls are entered in the Remenham challenge cup at HRR as part of the Thames/UL composite.
Also at Lucerne, in the Women's 2x A final Sarah Winckless and Elise Laverick (Thames) were 4th out of 6.
| RAIL STRIKE THREAT |
Crews competing at Henley Royal and spectators planning to go to watch next Wednesday, should be aware that a national rail strike is threatened for next Tuesday/Wednesday.Those depending on getting the train probably want to make alternative arrangements incase the strike does go ahead. If it does, traffic is likely to be horrendous, so leave plenty of time to get to Henley.
| SWEET SEVENTEEN |
The seventeenth Henley Women's regatta took place at the weekend, over three days of sun and showers on the Henley reach.This year's regatta saw the introduction of both "Intermediate" events in 8's and coxed 4's and, for the first time, qualifying races on Friday morning (as a response to the huge entry in both Intermediate events).
The qualifying races proved to be a very good predictor of form, as the fastest crews in both the 8's and 4's "head races" went on to win their overall events - the second placed crews coming second.
Interestingly, the spread of entries at Henley women's is starting to mirror that of the Royal, with the "high status" events attracting few entries (and most of those being foreign crews) whilst there is a huge entry in those events perceived to be "easier" - - though no medal at Henley women's is easy to come by these days...
The decision by organisers to tighten up on foreign crews entering intermediate events, didn't compromise the standard of the racing and the finals on Sunday produced a good range of results across all categories, with a strong showing from both UK and American Clubs. Indeed most competitors seemed very happy with this year's structure, the only suggestion being that organisers might consider imposing restrictions on recent "blues" and "purples" in the Intermediate events (as HRR used to do for the Brit before it was split into two events).
London RC and Auriol Kensington picked up their first ever wins at HWR, while Vesta ended their recent drought, by picking up a well deserved win in Senior VIIIs over Mortlake.
The Intermediate 8's was won by University College Dublin, and in the last event of the Day - umpired by ARA Chairman, Di Ellis CBE - the elite eights was won by a strong confident Thames crew.
Full results are available on the HWR regatta website
Click on the thumbnails below to see full size (will open in a separate window)
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Elsewhere at the regatta, a special ceremony was held for Stan Collingwood of TTRC where he was awarded the ARA Medal of honour for his services to rowing - a few pictures from the event are below.
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| HRR ENTRIES... |
For those who haven't spotted it yet - HRR entrires are available at http://www.hrr.co.uk/thisyear/entries.htm.Lists of crews required to qualify is HERE
| SIMPLY THE BREAST |
Four young women from Aberdeen have dedicated their crew's bid to win this year's Aberdeen Inter Company Rowing Regatta (Saturday 26th June 2004) to raising funds for breast cancer research and treatment services.Representing Aberdeen-based crane management contractors Sparrows Offshore, the four girls have called their crew 'Simply the Breast' and, with their coach Martin Worth, are losing no opportunity to extract donations and sponsorship from workmates and friends.
"None of us had ever rowed before and we had no idea how much fun it was until we started two weeks ago", says crew-member Emma Garrow. "Then we had the idea of using the competition to raise money for charity and, since we're all women, breast cancer stood out as the obvious cause to support."
The four, most of whom work in Sparrows finance department, are Emma Garrow, Kerry Hendry, Fiona Nicol and Lucia Dambruoso.
This year's event is the 20th running of the Aberdeen Inter Company Regatta, the largest event of its kind in Great Britain.
Each year 160 complete newcomers to rowing (40 crews) representing local companies and workplaces train over four weeks to compete in the showcase regatta on the Dee at Aberdeen Boat Club on Saturday 26th June. Racing this year starts at 10.00am with the final at around 5.00pm.
| JUST SAY NO |
The Dutch eight has been forced to withdraw from the Lucerne world cup, because Geert-Jan Derksen is injured.Gerritjan Eggenkamp, who is also in the eight and happens to be an Oxford blue, has a few connections in Team GB and arranged for Kieran West to sub into the Dutch crew/
West had no pair's partner and was glad to be given the opportunity to race, however GB team manager David Tanner had other ideas, and apparently forbade the whole deal...
...A decision which actually turned out to be for the best, as Kieran was then needed in the GB eight, to replace Dan Ouseley who'd come down with lurgy...
the bad news being that the eight missed out on a place in the final after losing to Harvard (rowing as USA2). (The Harvard crew are entered in the Grand at HRR in 10 days time - should make for some good racing)
| HWR |
Results are being posted throughout the day on the HWR website.
| THE OTHER SIDE... |
In the interests of balanced reporting, the slug would like to point out that Rob Roy boat club strongly deny they have ever been involved in actively poaching student rowers from Cambridge colleges, and point out that the introductory article in the Cambridge May Bumps programme 2004, clearly states that Cambridge student rowing is actually doing quite well.
| READ IT AND WEEP |
From the Concept 2 newsletter...
"Staff at my gym have asked me to moderate my rowing action/speed on the Indoor Rower. I work at the highest resistance level (10) and include a 30 second sprint in my normal workout to raise my pulse rate (when my heart monitor shows that I have dropped below my Training Zone). The sprint takes the strokes per minute (SPM) into the 70 and 80s and on the return action there is a brief loss of chain tension, which causes a slight 'whiplash' action. The reaction is safely limited by the design of the machine. The 30 second sprint adds variety and a motivational element to my workouts and I am reluctant to reduce the intensity.Non rowers - - gotta love 'emMy Concept 2 training consists of 30+30+20 sessions = 80 minutes at an average 50 SPM, which normally gives me a pulse rate of 100. My Concept 2 workout is part of a comprehensive weight resistance and cardiovascular routine. I have a strong upper body and my technique has a fast arm action and limited leg movement. I find this gives me the highest SPM and I have aspirations to enter indoor rowing races. "The British rowing team must work at high intensity levels and I find it hard to believe that the Rower would be damaged by high SPM. The machine is there to serve me. I do not exercise to serve the machine. "I am aged 67 and weigh 14st 9lbs.
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| HANDBAGS ON THE CAM |
The slug's little twitchy feelers have been picking up waves of discord from the Fens, as Cambridge University Combined Boat Club, which represents college rowing faces up to the town Clubs through the Cambridge Rowing Association.The reasons for this latest Town Vs Gown squabble is an increased blurring of the separation between CRA and CUCBC clubs and their membership, combined with the restrictions imposed on college crews as to when they are allowed to train on the river Cam.
The current agreement between the two organisations was clearly understood when implemented and was based on the two groups drawing members from separate pools of possible recruits (each with different practical time restrictions). Whilst, CRA clubs have always been able to use student rowers as temporary members in the summer, during term time, this has tended to be the exception rather than the rule.
What has got the hackles up is increased, aggressive targeting of good students by town clubs, poaching students by pointing out that rowing for a town club means they can then get around the CUCBC restrictions on outings.. CUCBC claim that this is now going on to such an extent as to impact college rowing adversely.
As the existing agreement is not written, and therefore no-one is doing anything "wrong" by the letter of the law, one option would be the removal of all out of term restrictions and all restrictions on University clubs putting all clubs on the Cam on a level playing field.
Of course, whether the Town clubs will accept restrictions being lifted without strong opposition is yet to be seen (but I wouldn't put money on it), however the issue was due for discussion at the CRA Delegates Meeting last night (Wednesday 16th June) so no doubt time will tell...
| WORLD CLASS STUCK-IN-A-RUT PROGRAMME |
The incriminating photos to the right were taken at Durham Regatta last Saturday afternoon.
The damange was apparently done while Andy Bird of Durham ARC's World Class Start programme, was trying to drive the van over a pothole of half metre of depth. Failing one of his 'first class start' boys lifting the van out, he proceeded to 'chock' it out with bricks.
However, a source close Andy confided to the slug that the pothole, was not the sole reason for the little incident...
"we all know the van was loaded with booze from the local of-licence!"
Hmmmm...
| CRASH, BANG, WALLOP... |
The Henley reach at this time of year, is unique in several ways, but one way it which it differs from normal rivers (and which can cause a painful surprise) is the presence of the booms marking out the racing lane......as the Thames women's elite eight found out to the detriment of their lovely shiny yellow boaty last weekend.
The girlies (who are anything but slow and gave a few men's crew a good run for their money when they competed against them in the Open S1 event at Met regatta recently), were doing pieces against the Thames men and had just finished one, when they went smack into one of the poles at the start line.
The end result being three scared and bruised bow siders and two broken Carl Douglas riggers on their lovely boat...
Be careful out there...
| 175th BOATRACE PARTY |
Say what you like about the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, but you can't deny they know how to throw a party...The 175th boat race celebration dinner takes place in Greenwich this Friday, and as the linked page about the dinner points out - the organisers seem to have properly anticipated the needs of those attending.
The following refreshments will be available:
2 bottles champagne between 3 people on the Silver Splurgeuon A glass of champagne each in the Painted Whore Half a bottle of white per head 2/3 of a bottle of red per head 2 glasses of port a head Plus Rolf Munding's beer on the return journey. That's going to be some collective Hangover on Saturday...
| TSS AT THE OLYMPICS |
23 members of the Tideway Scullers School have represened Great Britain at the Olympic Games from Tokyo in 1964 to Sydney in 2000. This has been achieved in the club's relatively short history since its foundation in 1958.
A dinner was held recently to honour these members in the run up to this year's Olympics, and 14 of the surviving 21 were present. Solid Silver commemorative lapel badges designed by Annabel Eyres, founder of Rock the Boat, were presented to each member, including Annabel herself as an Olympic competitor from 1992.
The four Tideway Scullers athletes seeking selection for the Athens Olympics this year: Tim Male; Mike Hennessy; Rod Chisholm and Alan Campbell (in the first photo,L to R Campbell, Chisholm, Male, Hennessey), were also present at the dinner and were wished well by all present.
These athletes have all benefited from the High Perfomance Programme* set up by TSS in September 2003.
The second photo shows Chris Williams, Chairman of TSS, welcoming the returning Olympians.
Attending the dinner were the following Olympians:
Bill Barry & John Russell (1964) Willy Almond & Dick Findlay (1972), Alan Inns (1972, 1980, 1984), Fiona Johnston, Kate Grose, Jo Clark and Ali Norrish (1988) Sue Nicholl (1988 and 1992) Annabel Eyres & Suzanne McKenzie (1992), Tim Male and Tom Middleton (2000). (Click thumnails to see pictures full size)
| FUN IN THE FENS |
The approaching end of yet another academic year brings us to the Funfest at Fenland Poly that is the Cambridge May Bumps. This year, the Slug only managed to get there for the final divisions on Saturday, the last day (it’s a long crawl to the Cam)
Much of the Slug’s time was spent by the start, always the most exciting bit of any race, and especially when you’ve got 17 VIII’s charging off at the sound of a dirty great cannon.
Slug did manage to slither up towards the Plough as the Mens 2nd Division was practicing their starts (and managed to stop two crews from killing each other as one wound down to avoid the ferry, whilst the other was steaming up behind them)
Having declined the Plough’s kind offer of £2.50 to be punted across to their pub to (allegedly) smelly loos and very expensive beer (note to self – take hip flask next time, instead of several bottles of wine).
Huddling under the willow tree near Grassy Corner during a cloudburst gave a good view of Fitzwilliam 1 in mens div 2 who took the long way round, and ran straight up the bank (anyone got any pics??) -- without another crew being anywhere near them -- and leaving 1st & 3rd 2 to simply row past them as they sat in the bank.
The Slug always enjoys the, shall we say, informal aspects of such events. Entertainment was assured throughout the day by judging highly unofficial contests for the two most important trends in comedy rowing:
- Which seat is the place of choice for the pie eater in the crew? (they're may be more than one)
- Which seat is the place of choice for the totally unco-ordinated muppet who should never have been allowed to set foot it a boat?
The Slug has to admit that the standard of these two events was, as usual, very good, with an excellent turn out from a number of crews, and many fine individual entries in each category.
As The Highlander used to say, ‘in the end, there can be only one’. The outstanding winner of the day was a tremendous individual submission in both events at once, from the a Women's 2nd VIII, who appeared to be slightly down on bowside-
For those not familiar with bumps racing, apparently, there is actually a point to all this student effort; something to do with heads and blades (We stopped that sort of thing in town at the Tower a few years back, but out in the Provinces, well its wild, I can tell you)
These happy campers from Magdelen Womens 1st VIII apparently ran into something every day, and were off home to get blades for their wall –
Slug thought this was probably just as well; the Cam is a bit bendy, they hadn’t actually gone round the first corner at this point, and that their cox had a big flag in one hand, and an almost as big bottle of ‘poo in the other.
Still, its nice to see the youngsters looking happy, eh?
| WIN A WORKOUT... |
Readers of the Sun last Thursday, were treated to a fine selection of pics of Mr Cracknell and Mr Pinsent in various exercise type positions, under the heading "Olympic stars help you beat the beer belly".
Three lucky readers were offered the chance to win a personal fitness session in London with Matthew and James -- with travel expenses paid for by Camelot..
No purchase is necessary, so simply enter by sending your name and address to :
Sun Rowing Competition
The Sun
1 Virginia Street
London E98 1SNby June 10th... so go on then...
| BRAINS AS WELL AS BRAWN... |
It seems that, while everyone is trying to cash in the corporate appeal of rowing, those cheeky eastenders at Curlew have managed to get in on the act -- having been spotted moonlighting as some Deutsche Bank employees in their latest promotional literature. The scullers in question apparently being El Greco, Mr Buns, Nick Dandruff and Mr. White..? (ahem -- Ed)
Apparently, it was an arduous process for the poor chaps... what with a day of makeup and hairspray, and some serious cramps whilst posing at frontstops for 30 minutes at a time.
awh, poor babies... (the slug trusts they were suitably financially compensated.)
(click on thumbnail to see full size)
| DIRT AT THE TOP |
South Korea's top Olympic official jailed on corruption charges
| ROWING TOURISM |
Another opportunity (this time for single scullers) to test what you're made of in mainland Europe...The Silver Skiff, a 11 km head race for single scullers will be held on Sunday 14th November in Turin (2006 Winter Olympic Games venue). The regatta is open to all categories of scullers, including masters, and allows world champions, club scullers and amateurs of all ages to compete on the beautiful river Po.
Last year the event had 205 entries, from Brazil, Mexico, Austria, Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, England, Switzerland and, of course, Italy. 1st, 2nd and 3rd places were taken by the Olympic champions Willms and Volkert from Germany and Rubio from Spain, the latter having already participated in 2001 and 2002.
However, surely the most impressive win of the event went to a young French man -A Giovannoni - at a mere 78 years old , who was a participant in the Helsinki Olympic games.
The event is sponsored by Empacher (who will make 5 single sculls available for the 5 competitors who come the longest distance) and big prizes are on offer : apart from the usual cups and medals for the winners of each category, there will be
a special prize of 700 Euros for the fastest sculler; a prize of 1000 Euros for the sculler who sets a new race record (the present record holder is André Willms, in 40' 53") A bicycle will be given to the sculler who's name is drawn from all those present at the prize giving. And Empacher boatmakers, On Saturday 13th the Kinderskiff, reserved for 10-13 year olds, will take place on a 4 Km. course. A bicycle will be presented to the overall winner, and there will be many other prizes.
To find out about the course, the rules, the discounted hotel prices offered by the Best Western Hotel chain, how to enter and lots of other news, check out their website at www.silverskiff.org/
| FRENCH TOAST |
In case anyone is interested, the Guernsey Fitness Factory, are attempting the London – Paris rowing record on Thursday (3rd June) in support of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. They will be boating from Thames RC at 11am on Thursday morning, and the attempt will start at Westminster Bridge at 1:30pm or thereabouts.The current record is held by a team from Jersey who completed the row in Sept 2000 in 90 hours, 33 mins and 33 secs
For more info on the Guernsey attempt, check out their webpage at http://www.gsychallenges.info/index.cfm/the_menu_id/17
| CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES |
For the 98.4% of you that didn't make it to the competition review at TRC last night, a brief summary of some things you probably need to know, follows:First of all, nothing is going to change for a while yet, the 2004/2005 season will run as "normal" and the ARA probably won't publish any concrete proposals until Autumn (2004) at the earliest.
It's quite clear that the scale of the changes being proposed won't lend themselves to a 'big bang' approach, so expect to see things being phased in over a few years.
What's not really clear at the moment:
how the changes are going to be / should be managed; how the review is going to address some of the club level issues it raises -- such as boat allocation for non-competitive crews; how the changes will impact regattas' ability to turn a profit and whether the objectives could be partly met in the short term, by adapting the existing system (i.e. get rid of the 4 crews to qualify rule and slow down regression) .However, amongst all the confusion, the review has thrown up a lot of good ideas which deserve consideration, especially when taken alongside the long term plan for developing rowing in GB.
Further reviews with the rowing community will be required, and to be honest, the people who really need to get involved are coaches, as most rowers only go the the regattas they're told to go to...
Anyway, if you want to hear logic and statistics behind the proposals and give some feedback of your own, you have one chance left in the current round of presentations-- tonight (2nd June) at Erith Rowing Club - (very near Erith station in South East London) - starting at 7:30pm.
| OUCH... |
Oh the slug loves bumps racing, really , really, really loves bumps racing... and here's one reason whyhttp://affiliates.new.ox.ac.uk/ncbc/eights.mov
- check out the Thursday footage from the Summer 2004 Iffley special school Comedy Rowing Championships.
(don't attempt to click on this link unless you have broadband - it's a tad large)
| NAME IT IN ONE..? |
A coach from which Tideway club is rumoured to have been involved in a bit of a brawl with a passing cruiser driver on Saturday morning?Things apparently got a bit heated after the vessel swapmed his eight but calmed down after the police were called...
| WRONG TURN |
Just to prove that cross country rowing isn't limited to the northern hemisphere, the attached sequence of piccies was taken at the ANA Rowing Club regatta, on 29th May 2004, which is held on their stretch of water in Bayswater Western Australia.It shows a University of WA pair taking to the reeds towards the finish. It happens every year, despite all crews being warned and, in this instance, shouted at by assorted umpires, spectators and passing members of the public.
Alas, UWA were in the lead at the time and only had about 100 metres to go, so their award for the "best piece of overland rowing" was probably no compensation for losing...
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(Click to enlarge)
| SORE HANDS, SORE HEAD? |
One reader has suggested that those who have been considering the mammoth challenge of the Eleven Towns Row might want to be aware of the multiple dangers of long outings in the low countries, as illustrated by one sentence on the race's homepage..."Houdt er rekening mee dat de laagste bruggen niet meer dan 60 cm boven het water liggen in verband met vlaggenstokken, verlichting en hoog stuurstoel"
... which means that the poor competitors will row under a very low bridge, where the ceiling will be just 60cm above the waterline... A situation Which usually requires lying flat in the boat and praying that the blades don't catch the bank!!!
So, you're not just tired, have no skin left on your hands and have colonies of urchins developing on all your poor muscles, you also risk concussion!!!
| RUN AWAY |
The student in question is an MBA postgraduate from Durham University who goes by the name of Wade Hall-Craggs... he who represented Great Britain at the 1992 Olympics in the Men's fatweight single sculls and who also happens to be the DUBC head coach)
Matt Smith who rowed for oxford in the boat race (2000-2003) and was OUBC president in 2003, is currently planning to cycle across the USA with fellow ex-Oxford rower Phil Fellowes.
