Tyne United

In addition to the racing at Strathclyde park this weekend Tyne United also made their way to the Junior Inter Regional Regatta, at the National Watersports Centre in Nottingham.

After a Saturday practice to settle any nerves associated with being on a 1500m multi lane course for the first time Sunday saw the Sam and Pat our J15 2x compete in a time trial. Pre-race nerves were high although it’s not clear who was worse, the athletes or Alex, their coach!

After causing a false start the double reset themselves and set off again. At the rear of the field for the first 150m of the race the double drove their boat down the course pushing through other crews placing third in their heat. Unfortunately this placed them 7th overall, just missing out on the ‘A’ final by 2 seconds.

The ‘B’ final saw the double chase down the South East region for 1st place in their final unfortunately losing to them by half a length, but leaving the rest of the field in their wake and Alex as one very proud coach.

Sam & Pat in training for the inter-regionals

As well as the boys’ double Luke Dixon, who also rows for Cambois RC, was entered in to a J16 4+ composite with Durham school. Fourth fastest in their time trial they came fifth fastest over all putting them in to the ‘A’ final. There the crew found themselves fighting at the front of the field, unfortunately crossing the line fourth, half a length off Bronze position and only a length off Silver.

Masters' quad ready(?) to set out

It was an eventful two days of racing at this weekend’s Strathclyde Park Regatta. The bulk of the racing for TURC took place on Saturday with a number of junior, senior and masters crews out. On Sunday there was only one junior single sculler and a masters’ quad competing. Both days provided good racing and good results with most of the juniors getting through their heats to the finals of their events.

Andrew has promised a full race report which I’ll post with further images when I’m not restricted by EastCoast Trains’ bandwidth.

In the meantime (and in response to the complaints about the post race pictures [1; 2] from the Chester-le-Street Regatta) here’s Sunday’s Masters’ quad in pre-race mode.

For those going to Strathclyde the provisional draw is available online.

It was TURC vs TURC in the Masters’ 4x+ final at Chester-le-Street Regatta today. Mind you one crew got a bye to the final whilst the other did actually qualify; convincingly beating Tees in the heat. Other crews were competing as well and a full race report will follow (eventually). Meanwhile here’s our winning crew (and if you think they look knackered you should see the others; actually you can in the gallery).

Following on-going assessment since October, two TURC athletes were invited to final GB trials in Hazewinkel this weekend. After an autumn term of illness, Will Fletcher regained form to compete in the lightweight men’s sculling trial and Stuart McCluskey  in the men’s sweep. Competition at trials is notoriously fierce as established squad athletes, even Olympic Gold medalists,  have to show their form, while the younger contenders find out where they stand in the bigger picture.

Each event begins with a time trial after which the athletes are seeded into a/b, c/d semi’s then finals. Will’s heat placed him 7th overall in LW men and in the subsequent a/b semis he fought for a third place, putting him in the top 6 and a place in the A final along with two other Under23′s and 2 senior scullers, including Zac Purchase, Olympic Champion. The final follows this morning.

Stuart’s pair came in 20th in the time trial, a reasonable result for this recent pairing following the injury of his original pairs partner and back problems which excluded Stuart from the recent HORR. Both Will and Stuart competed under their Durham University membership and were accompanied to trials by Wade Hall Craggs, their coach.

Following finals today further crew formation will take place at Caversham this week, placing athletes in preliminary crews with an eye on the world stage later in the summer.

Kieron Emery missed trials due to injury and hopes to re-join the mix during the coming months. Its a timely reminder for all athletes at any level, that injury and illness are sometimes an unavoidable complication which must simply be dealt with even if it means taking time out to recover properly.

For further trials information and results see the British Rowing website.

I’ve set up a Tyne United Twitter account: http://twitter.com/tyneunited so if you already tweet or just follow others who do sign up now. All the posts to the site will be posted as tweets by @tyneunited and I’ll look at the possibility of tweeting from regattas etc.

In the meantime I’ve updated the York Head post with Gav’s race report. Doubly impressive is that he wasn’t even there!

Well with our new training schedule up and evening ergo sessions making way for water based rowing the still waters we’ve seen recently have made way for the usual chop. It gets interesting when wind and tide clash as evidenced by last weeks veterans’ outing (they were still vets then not masters!).

Chris in C 1x

Veterans' Quads

Veterans' Quad creating a splash

Some not so veteran rowers also got out…

Sarah and Jo in C 2x

A big pat on the back for all the older rowers in the club, as from today they are to be recognised as MASTERS of their sport, rather than veterans. This is good, because to be fair the  veteran label  simply meant that someone had been doing it a long time, without referencing their skills at all. Unless, like me, you are still very new to the sport, in which case veteran simply means old!

Apparently not that old though, because you used to be a veteran at the age 31; (i think my trainers are older than that!). So not particularly old, and not necessarily experienced, this was a label that was crying out to be redefined.
Now I am a master, which makes even less sense on the face of it. However I can now reveal that this is a cunning piece of sports psychology. As my favourite Shaolin priest from the 70s Kung Fu TV series might have said, “to defeat the enemy, first you must become like the enemy”.

A TURC master typically instructing his apprentice in the ways of the water

So by officially recognising us oldies as true masters of our sport, we instantly feel 2 inches taller and 20 years younger, both of which will certainly improve my splits next winter. So thanks for that, BR, I will repay you for this recognition with some masterful performances in regatta season. although I might wait for Gav to tell me its OK to take the stabilisers off first!
Oh no, I’ve just spotted the date: what a fool I’ve been. well done BR, you really got me.