All go for 3000 rowers at Masters Regatta

The annual regatta is for rowers who are 27 years of age or older over a 1000m distance. The rowers race against their own age group determined by five year blocks. Ages range into the the ‘K’ category for rowers over 85 years old. At Hazewinkel one of the oldest rowers is 90-year-old Burk Ketcham from the United States.

One of the features of masters racing is the opportunity to row with people from other clubs or countries and Ketcham has taken advantage of this to row with Otto Schaefer, 84, from Germany and Zdzislaw Adamik, 89, of Poland.

Competitors can also race in a variety of boats with the total number of entries being nearly 5,500. This huge number of races means that the days are long and races begin every five minutes.

The regatta has attracted competitors from first-time, novice rowers through to Olympians. The list of Olympians in action include Lars Bjonness and Vetle Vinje who won silver at the 1988 Olympic Games in the men’s quadruple sculls for Norway. Also regular masters competitor, Thomas Lange of Germany who won the men’s single sculls at the 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games.

A total of 674 clubs have entered, coming from 49 countries. The biggest entry is from Germany with 173 clubs entered made up of 618 rowers. There is also a large number of contenders from Great Britain with 477 rowers coming from 90 clubs. The United States has entries from 48 clubs and 148 athletes. Australia has come the distance with 16 clubs and 65 rowers. There are also competitors from Iran, Israel, Ireland and Italy. Host country, Belgium has 97 rowers entered.

The World Rowing Masters Regatta has been held once before at the Blosso regata course in Hazewinkel. This was in 2000 and since then Blosso has hosted other World Rowing regattas.

The World Rowing Masters Regatta goes from 10-13 September, 2015.

Useful links:
www.wrmr2015.com
https://www.facebook.com/worldrowingmasters
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2015WRMR/