Rowing & Boats
Rowing matters by
Happy days. My Manchester University crews performed brilliantly in the North of England Head of the River Race today in Chester.
The men, finishing an unprecedented 3rd, 12th, 18th and 36th won Senior 3, Senior 4 and Novice pennants and the women's 1st VIII were only 2 seconds behind Livepool in Senior 4. Both the women's crews were happy with their row and said they could not have done more. They are also very keen to improve at the forthcoming training camp in Bordeaux and to get into crews for Women's Henley.
Funny sport rowing. You can win but row badly and be annoyed with yourself. Yet you can lose and be delerious with your performance because you know that you aquitted yourself, you rowed above your expectations and could not have done any better.
The outstanding performance of the day for me was a real result with the first eight. I have put a lot of time in for them this last week and it has paid dividends. That's is not to say that I didn't think they could have done better. I was worried after seeing them go by and then watching the 2nd eight go by that the second eight might have beaten them.
But it just goes to show that you cannot see speed. I've often noticed that crews may look good but they may be slow or fast. You cannot tell unless they are moving relative to another crew. Our race plan worked a treat and although the 1st eight was not looking agressive they did look neat and clean and the boat was moving well and they were sticking to the race plan. So to finish third overall was a fantastic result. We are on track. Much more to come. Only Agecroft and Royal Chester's 1st eights beat us and not by that much.
It has been 11 years since I had the privelege of coaching athletes with this much potential. Then it was Liverpool University and they went on to finsh 42nd in the HORR in London the next week. Watch this space.
Well done everybody.
Posted by Stephen Walker at March 13, 2004 06:07 PM