Not so hellish northern rowing

By Melissa Bray

This year’s Hell of the North rowing regatta could have been renamed the not-so-hellish regatta.

The Netherlands' popular winter head race turned on pleasant temperatures of around 10 degrees Celsius with sun, rather than snow, hail and rain – a regular feature of past races.

Weather aside the hell for the 310 boat entries must have been the long 10km row just to get to the start and then the 6km, hopefully quicker, race to the finish line. But then, just to cap it off, there’s the 4km row back to Groningen Rowing Club and the waiting celebrations.

Sculling stalwarts Jueri Jaanson of Estonia and Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus showed the skill of experience by winning their respective race. Dutch course record holder, Sjoerd Hamburger, however, gave Jaanson a good run for his money finishing just two seconds down on the Estonian Olympic silver medallist.

But the fastest time went to under 23 lightweight rower Tim Heijbrock who clocked in two seconds faster than Jaanson. Despite the cold weather reputation of the “Hel” Jaanson, along with Karsten, is a regular.

“I like in autumn the different long distance races because they are a good part of training,” Jaanson said in the post-race video clip.

The race is for singles and pairs only and winning the women’s pairs event was the current top Dutch duo of Annemiek de Haan and Annemarieke van Rumpt. They were closely followed by the new pairing of Femke Dekker and reigning world lightweight single champion Marit van Eupen.

Leading the way for the men Olaf van Andel and Mitchel Steenman who competed this year at the World Rowing Championships in the pair.

These top pair rowers are part of the Dutch national programme and this even was used as a selection criteria for the Dutch national team.

This caps off a week of news from the Netherlands which continues this weekend as the Euro Open Indoor Rowing competition takes over the ergos of Amsterdam with over 1000 people competing on 16 December. All races can be watched by live webcast by clicking here .

Any rowing federations from around the world who would like to share their news can write to World Rowing.com through feedback .