copyright: Campbell Ferguson

Patron, Redgrave with Scottish minister Jack McConnell and event chairman Mary Massaro

Conveyor belt racing. Up to eight lanes of boats per event. Three minute intervals between races. Floating repair docks at the 500 metre mark. Three thousand participants taking up 7,882 seats in over 600 races. Five hundred coxswains keeping rowers on the straight and narrow.

Last weekend the 2005 World Rowing Masters Regatta transformed Strathclyde Loch in Scotland into a celebration of masters rowing. Over three days rowers ranging in age from 27 to 86 years old raced in their age groups for 1,000 metres. Some competitors raced in one event, some in 12. All events were raced as heats and the winner of each event took away a Celtic design medal.

Rowers competed under the colours of their club and Great Britain arrived with the largest number of entries then left in second position on the medals table. At the top of the medals table Germany finished with 103 medals.

Sprinkled in amongst the heavy racing schedule rowers found time to enjoy a traditional Scottish Ceilidh (dance) complete with samples of local whiskey and a chance to meet rowers from 34 nations, some competing for the first time after only three months of rowing, others former Olympic medallists.

copyright: Campbell Ferguson

Pekna and Norkova rowing for the Czech Republic

Former Olympian and FISA Masters Commission member Zdena Norkova of the Czech Republic raced with her sister Olina Pekna. The sisters represented Czechoslovakia in the pair at the 1974 World Championships and 1976 Montreal Olympics.

?It is in the nature of this regatta that former world champions race alongside relative novices,? said FISA Masters Commission Chair Peter Morrison.

Morrison gave an example of a crew of rowing mums who started rowing this year as their children were rowing at school. ?Their race was being caught by the next race, so they had to speed up to avoid being overtaken before the finish line. They loved the experience.?  

Direct to Strathclyde from the 2005 World Rowing Championships in Gifu, Japan, winner of the adaptive LTA mixed coxed four Alan Crowther of Great Britain left adaptive rowing to race in five events for his local club, Derby Rowing Club. Then for the first time at a masters worlds regatta there was an adaptive demonstration sculling event. The adaptive single (AM1x) included Rob Holliday who came to Strathclyde from the World Rowing Championships where he finished fifth.    

Also arriving from the World Rowing Championships was Japan’s Mitsubishi Rowing Club. Many of the 60 member team had acted as volunteers at the Championships and moved to the other side to be competitors.

The largest number of competitors was in the ?C? category (43 years and older) with over 1,000 entries across the events. The men’s C single was the biggest single event.

The regatta was opened by Great Britain’s Sir Steve Redgrave, Patron of the Regatta who still holds the course record for the men’s four set at the 1986 Commonwealth Games.

For a full list of results click here.

Next year the FISA World Masters Regatta will go to the United States, to Princeton, New Jersey in September 2006.

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