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Issue 97 - April 1997
Another month down the line and the days seem to be blurring into one mass of outings, weight training, eating and sleeping. The fortnightly rhythm of the training programme is broken only by physiological testing and test ergs. The highlight of the cycle for me is without doubt the 8km time trial. It is the only time the foot can come off the brake: the rate meter can be discarded to the wind: the freedom of pulling can progress unchecked; the mind can focus on one thing; the final time.
It is 8.46km long with three racing turns and time penalties for using incorrect bridge arches. Dare I say it, the time trial is a bit of a ritual out here on the Shing Mun River. Each athlete has his or her personal best times held on file, there is a top twenty all time list and fastest time targets for both lightweight and heavyweight singles. In order to get a good time notched up, like any timed race in rowing, it is not good enough just to be in perfect physical shape. The external forces of mother nature need to be playing in your favour as well. The odds of both a gentle incoming neap tide and a calm breathless morning must be stacked heavily against the athlete. I have been here two months and I am still waiting patiently for the ideal day. They say it took Peter Haining three years of waiting to establish the fastest time. I have only two opportunities left and I am frantically looking around for the right god to go and make my offerings to.
Over the last seven days the weather has started to heat up and the mercury has stabilised in the mid to high twenties. With the humidity rarely below 80%, heat dissipation is becoming quite a challenge for the body. Pools of sweat surround the ergs, Dri-FIT material has become almost essential wearing and to cap it all, my calluses end each outing as if they have spent two hours soaking in a bath.
In the short hours between training sessions, I kill time by reading or writing. Sometimes I just lie back on my bed and think. Something which is at the forefront of my mind is the Academy of Sport. The Hong Kong Sports Institute was modelled on the Australian Institute of Sport. It is a centralised centre, with quite a few of the athletes from the target sports living in the hostel. All the scholarship athletes eat together, food is available all day with hot food served three times a day.
The conditioning gym is for the sole use of scholarship athletes, with a sauna and jacuzzi. The sports science and medical support is both flexible and geared more towards athlete service than publishing research.
What really amazes me is the fact that the staff at the Institute have not forgotten that the role of the centre is to produce excellence and not just to make money something we in Britain seem to overlook at every opportunity. So as I stare at the ceiling, I wonder why are the British women's national team leaving their boats to rot on scaffolding while the Hong Kong rowing team train using the best facilities money can buy. Which nation wants to win Olympic gold medals? Which nation has realised that elite athletes need more than thin air to live and train on? Which nation really cares?
Guin Batten is training in Hong Kong with Jane Hall as guests of the Hong Kong Sports Institute
© Copyright Guin Batten, 1997.
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