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2006 Silverskiff Regatta, Turin, Italy, 12th November 2006. The 15th edition of the long distance Silver Skiff Race took place in Turin on Sunday 12th November. Unfortunately, because of the thick fog that unexpectedly fell on the course right at the start, the visibility was suddenly reduced to a few metres. The jury was therefore forced to postpone the start several times until finally, at 12 noon, the fog cleared away. The sun finally made a timid appearance through the clouds, thus allowing 360 scullers aged from 18 to 80 years, among whom were four Olympic winners and 55 world gold medallists, to line up before the start. Then, at 20 second intervals, they dashed off to cover the 11 km course of the race. For quite a bit, the provisional results led everybody to believe that the race was going to be a private Scandinavian affair between the Swede Lassi Karonen and the Norvegian Olaf Tufte. But when Kiwi Mahe Drysdale - the 2005 and 2006 world champion who, as a newcomer, started from an awkward 162nd position, which forced him to continuously overtake scores of other scullers, who also hampered him in more than one case - got to the finish, the stop watch showed that not only was he half a minute ahead of the two Scandinavians, but that he had also established the new course record in 40 minutes 32 seconds (40:32). Drysdale's mighty performance leaves no doubts about him being unrivalled at the moment. The top finishing order therefore shows Drysdale ahead of Lassi Karonen and Olaf Tufte who completed the course in 41:04 and? 41:08 respectively, followed by Elia Luini, Italian gold medal lightweight sculler, in 41:33; American lightweight Steve Tucker in 41:59; German Matthias Scholmann Finck 42:01; Estonian Juri Jaanson 42:03; Italians Bertini and Pettinari 42:09 and 42:11; Dutch Geert Cirkel 42:13; another Swede, Paul Rosenquist, 42:33; Italian Daniele Gilardoni 42:35; Swiss Michael Schmidt 42:37 and Dutch Sjoerd Hamburger 42:46. As for the top women Ekaterina Karsten won yet again, as in 2005, beating the strong American Michelle Guerette by 54 seconds, with the record time of 45:04. Guerette (45:58) was followed by Norwegian lightweight Marianne Nordhal in 46:16; Italian Gabriella Buscelli 46:25; Swiss sculler Sara Hofmann 46:47; Slovenian Majda Jerman 46:58; Italian Elisabetta Brugo 47:46 and American Ellen Kennelly 48:01. A large number of Masters also joined the Silver Skiff Regatta: this is an typical peculiarity of the race which, from its beginning in 1992, was reserved to veterans only and was only opened up to all categories from 1996 onwards. Among them were mention-worthy performances from Claudio Cecconi (Men's C) 45:05; Marcello Valoncini (Men's B) 45:14; Sean Sinclair from the UK (Men's B) 45:26; 1960's multiple Italian champion Beppe Girone (Men's F) 46:52; Klagenfurt Regatta organiser Willy Koska (Men's E) 46:53; the Americans John Flory (Men's F) 47:41 and Carlo Zezza (Men's H) 48:47; and the remarkable performance of the 81 year old 1948 and 1952 Olympic finalist Giovannoni Achille from France (Men's H), who, despite having his boat badly damaged and filled with water, still managed to complete the course in 52:53. Altogether, including some 180 children aged 11 to 14 years, who raced the day before in the Kinder Skiff Regatta, 540 scullers gave a memorable "kermesse" on the river Po, which will be long remembered by all those who took part. Alberto Graziano, Silverskiff Regatta, Italy. Full senior and junior results on the SilverSkiff website.
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