Friday 30th January 2004
- Recent FISA stories - Ocean Race Honours John Fairfax, Mueller's Athens Dream May Come in Stars and Stripes, and Australia Rows Through Second Olympic Selection - the last including news that Geoff Stewart and Bo Hansen beat Drew Ginn and James Tomkins by short of a length in the pairs trials. Full results on Rowing Australia but a little hard to find..!
Thursday 29th January 2004
- The ARA's Coach of the Year awards (K) have gone to Colin Bullock, Ian Taylor, Charles Green and Jim MacCartney. More details here.
Tuesday 27th January 2004
- I received a letter from a rower with an irregular heartbeat which others may be interested in.
Monday 26th January 2004
- I have put up a page about how to avoid scams, spam and viruses, collecting together general advice I frequently spout here.
- The Head of the Trent (UK) would like to announce that this year they are awarding the "Cliff Booth Memorial Trophy", in memory of a former President, captain and coach of Notts Britannia RC. It will be presented to the fastest boat at the Head of the Trent this year.
Friday 23rd January 2004
- Following up the earlier enquiry made about phaseshift rowing, I was sent this link about the interesting concept of a rowing Centipede.
Thursday 22nd January 2004
- Cambridgeshire Rowing Association (UK) last night voted to contribute £2,500 towards the camToo project appeal to fund a study of the project for public presentation.
Monday 19th January 2004
- Results of the Remenham Challenge (UK) which was held yesterday in Staines - if I read it right London won the mens elite by a couple of lengths and Thames were unchallenged in women's elite eights.
Friday 16th January 2004
- The Olympic bid process is brewing hotter now, with the official bid proposals giving a massive amount of specific detail having to be in to the IOC yesterday. One question may have been answered by the choice of Dorney Lake as the London rowing venue (syndicated piece around the UK this morning). This could in theory change, but it is no surprise since the Eton venue will already have hosted the Worlds in 2006, although it may jeopardise the British bid through its distance from the main Olympic arenas.
- News yesterday that Julia Lindsey has replaced Dominic Reid as Event Manager for the Boat Race - more details on the official race website (UK).
Thursday 15th January 2004
- Thursday giggle: if you have time to download a 1.8Mb mpg file, try try this for a laugh. Particularly good for mountain-biking nuts.
Wednesday 14th January 2004
- Sir Steve Redgrave has launched a new auction site on which he will offer sporting memorabilia. Successful bids go towards the Sir Steve Redgrave Charitable Trust for children.
Monday 12th January 2004
- A group of rowers have whipped another load off the world 100km erg record, finishing the 10-man relay sprint in 4 hours 12 minutes and 46.7 seconds. The time was 5 minutes and 5 seconds inside the previous record, held by Royce's Gym since 2002. The 'Mad Team Indoor Rowing Club' of Graham Benton, Nik "Big Bird" Fleming, Graham Kirk, Tony Larkman, Rob Smith, Andy Insje, Chris Brett, Steve Hammond, John O'Grady and Kevin Peebles managed an average split of 1:15.8, as compared with the Royce's Gym split of 1:17.4. The successful attempt was held in aid of the UK National Deaf Children's Society charity, and donations can be made online, while there is team information on the web too.
- Rowing Canada has added double Olympic medallist Laryssa Bisenthal to their coaching roster, with responsibility for the lightweight women's double scull. Biesenthal, who won bronze in 1996 and 2000, has been coaching at the lower senior level for the Under-23's, Commonwealths, World University team and Pan-American Games in recent years.
Sunday 11th January 2004
- Three Empachers have been stolen from the Stuttgart-Cannstatter Ruderclub (Germany). They are 'Sturmvogel' (serial no. K12 H 786), 'Schnakehuster' (serial K18 J 598) and the third has no name, with a 5 cm wide dark green metallic varnish stripe reaching from the bowball to the end of the canvas, 50cm long. All three should have Stuttgart-Cannstatter written on their sterns, glue probably visible if names removed. Could anyone with information please contact info@rudern-in-stuttgart.de.
Saturday 10th January 2004
- Dr. Paul Strutton of the Imperial (UK) back pain project is seeking more volunteers for his study. For more details see this MS Word doc (28Kb).
- The Gay & Lesbian Rowing Federation (global but based in the USA) is launching a "2004 Ready All Boats Awareness Campaign". More information on the website and from Brian Todd.
Friday 9th January 2004
- FISA have announced that they will begin the Olympic regatta a day earlier than originally planned, ie 14th August, in order to have a day in hand in case conditions become difficult. Friday 20th will be their "spare" day: if all goes to plan it will be a day off for everyone.
- The Thames Regional Umpires' Commission (UK) is putting together its list of candidates for this year's training. More information including details of the upcoming meeting, on the link above.
Thursday 8th January 2004
- Dennis Wolbach (USA, I think) seeks information on a "Roona Boat Club" which is probably now no longer in existence. He has an 1881 presentation mug with this on, and wants to work out the provenance. Any information to me to forward to him. Cheers. rq (at) rowingservice.com
- From before Christmas, another update from Tim Walton in Iraq (see December 20th): "I am more than happy to report that rowing on Concept 2s is alive and well here and in fact, you will see hitting the headlines fairly soon, the British Army Concept 2 2000m Challenge that I organised here at HQ Multi National Division (South East) at Basra. It was a limited success because unfortunately, the weekend that it was rowed, Ops took us out in response to the news from Baghdad about Saddam's arrest. Never mind, Concept 2 gave me a hand with sponsorship of T Shirts for prizes and I was pleased with the outcome - entrance fees went to Breast cancer charities...."
