Indoor Rowing N E W S L E T T E R ===================== 24-Mar-2000 ======================== ____________________________________________C O N T E N T S 1. The Big One 2. Burns' Night 3. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? 4. Tel's Tales 5. On-Water Rowing 6. Andrew Halsey 7. Welsh IRC 8. Over To You _________________________________________________________ ====================================================== 1.THE BIG ONE ====================================================== "The Big One", which describes itself as the unofficial 100,000 metre British championship, took place on March 19th at Millfield School in Street, Somerset. Organiser Neil Rhodes takes up the story: "The youngest competitors were 14yrs old, part of the Westfield School team. (3x14yrs, 4x15 and 4x16yrs). Half the team had never sat on a Concept II rower until the Tuesday before the race, while 4 out of the remaining 5 had not been on an Indoor Rower since last year's Red Nose Row! They started the day with only 5 members as the other 5 could not be spared from the rugby team. The rugby players won 30-17, drove 35 minutes to Millfield, and only then joined the rest of the rowers! "The eldest competitor was 62 year old Peter Stratford, who was part of the Yeovil Heartbeat team. This is the second year a team of cardiac rehab patients have completed the 100,000 metre row. The 'boys' use the rower regularly in the rehab gym, normally just 2-3mins as part of a circuit session, so the 100,000 metres is just a long circuit! "Andy Robinson got the flywheel whirring, starting his solo effort 30mins before the team start, and got a great cheer from the teams to help him on the way. The mass team start took place a couple of minutes late as the BG ladies made some final adjustments to their 'running order', but finally, at 10:03am 'The Big One' was under way. "The battle was always going to be between, Bristol Police, BG Max, the Mile High Rowers and local team Golden Xplosives. "Bristol Police had the early advantage, just heading BG Max, Wolfson College, The Mile high Rowers and Golden Xplosives. The race remained close, to the end, with only 5 minutes between first and third place, BG Max finishing in 4:59:4, 1:22 ahead of Bristol Police. This makes BG Max only the third team in the UK to finish sub 5hrs. "To match the BG Men, the BG Babes won the Ladies Cup in a time of 6:35:13. To round the day off, many people stayed behind to encourage Andy Robinson, bringing him to the end of his row with a rousing cheer, just as he started. Andy's final time, 8:07:55." The highlight of the day, however, was the performance of the Wolfson College Boat Club team from Cambridge. With only nine members (6 men and three women), they came home in 5:32:35, taking a hefty ten minutes of the existing mixed team record. The final word goes to Neil Rhodes, describing the aftermath of the whole thing: "If you can imagine the scene when the emergency services practice for a major disaster, well it looked just like that, mayhem." The full results can be found at http://www.concept2.co.uk/v4/local.htm ====================================================== BURNS' NIGHT ====================================================== All round good guy and indoor enthusiast Richard Burns made history in Portugal recently, as the Subaru World Rally Team driver won the Rallye de Portugal, becoming the first Englishman ever to lead the World Rally Championship in the process. An incredible performance from Richard and his Subaru Impreza WRC2000 puts him six points clear at the top of the Drivers' Championship, and Subaru 15 points to the good in the Manufacturer's table. This result is Richard's seventh World Rally victory and his second consecutive win this season. "I'm completely overjoyed at this result! - it feels great to win after the last couple of days. The car is just fantastic - it's been a pleasure to drive, and this result is a repayment for the all the people in the team who have been working so hard to get it right. I went like hell on that last stage - really taking some risks, but I wanted those points so badly and I want to become the first Englishman to win the World Championship." ====================================================== WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? ====================================================== Readers of the current Concept Culture may recall a story about four Welsh friends who carried an Indoor Rower up Ben Nevis, Scaffel Pike and Snowdon and rowed 2,000 metres each on the summit, all within the space of 36 hours. This year they're putting together a team who will attempt to row 1,000,000 metres within four days in the foyer of Royal Glamorgan Hospital, raising money for their Intensive Care Unit in the process. The row will be seconded by another challenge, however. Alongside the team effort, Simon Bradley, a fitness instructor from Zenith Health and Fitness Studio, will attempt to row 1,000,000 metres on his own and in the space of five days. Needless to say, this is a pretty staggering challenge. According to his friend Alan Gregory although, "if you tell Simon something's impossible, it just makes him more determined to do it." Simon kicked his row off at midnight on Wednesday 22nd, while the team effort set off twelve hours later. While Simon will try and row to a pattern of one hours rest for every four hours of rowing, the team will keep the flywheel going constantly. ====================================================== TEL'S TALES ====================================================== Every fortnight we have a regular section where Terry O'Neill answers any conceivable question you might have, whether it's on race strategy, exercise routines, technical questions about how the machine works or the capital of Ecuador. Every fortnight that is, apart from this one. Unfortunately Terry's been in Spain for the past fortnight delivering boats and other such mullarkey. He will, however, be back for the next newsletter, so any questions you've got, just put 'em in an e-mail and send it to webmaster@vermonthouse.co.uk. ====================================================== ON-WATER ROWING ====================================================== March 19th saw a rare defeat for Steve Redgrave in the Head Of the River Race when a Leander team, stroked by Matthew Pinsent, lost to the holders, Queen's Tower. Leander, with four world champions in the stern seats and two silver medallists, lost ground in rough water at Barnes. Although they were able to close the gap after Hammersmith they weren't able to make up the deficit, losing in the end by just half a length. Queen's Tower, with coxless four world champion Ed Coode and five silver medallists, including stroke Richard Dunn, are, like Leander, mostly potential Olympic oarsmen. The Head Of the River Race is rowed over the same 4.25 mile course as the Boat Race, although in the opposite direction. A link that takes us smoothly onto the 145th Boat Race, which is taking place this Saturday. The Boat Race is one of the biggest sporting showcases of the year, attracting a global TV audience measured in hundreds of millions as well as thousands of spectators alongside the Thames itself. Anybody who's thinking of popping along to watch the boys in various shades of blue row, might want to check out the Auriol Kensington Rowing Club Marquee in Furnivall gardens, 300 yards west of Hammersmith Bridge. Not only will it be stocked full of ale, games and fun, they're also running an Indoor Rower competition with a number of prizes on offer. Tell them we sent you. ====================================================== ANDREW HALSEY ====================================================== Fears are growing for epileptic rower Andrew Halsey as he attempts a solo voyage across the Pacific, from America to Australia. He had estimated that the journey would take him approximately 8 months (which would have been about now). Although he's rowed more than 6000 miles, exceptionally bad weather conditions have taken him way off course, leaving him another 5000 still to go; further, within weeks his satellite beacon will stop working, leaving him lost in the ocean. Kenneth Crutchlow, executive director of the Ocean Rowing Society, told a news conference that Mr Halsey would never give up. He said: "If Andrew became untraceable, he would be prepared to die. I think he is prepared to row into the sunset." Mr Crutchlow added that unemployed Mr Halsey lived in a flat in Bloomsbury, central London, with just one knife and fork and no bed, "he has nothing to come back for." Accepting this as fact the Ocean Rowing Society has began an effort to re-supply Andrew from the Island of Nuka Hiva in French Polynesia, the closest land mass. Kenneth Crutchlow said "We have donations enough to re-supply Andrew Halsey with only about half of what he needs. But I will proceed with all haste to get him what I can before he runs out of supplies, which has to be quite soon" When Halsey left San Diego the only communication system he had was a handheld email unit that has not worked since last October. The last communication of any kind from Halsey was on January 04th when he was seen by a ship and he sent the message "see you in Australia". He has three Argos tracking beacons to be used each in turn. Yesterday Halsey started transmitting on two of them. This is interpreted to be a signal requesting a re-supply, and at the very least confirms he is on board and alive. In 1997 Mr Halsey was the first disabled person to row across the Atlantic despite suffering two epileptic fits during the voyage. Five British rowers and a Russian have disappeared, presumed dead, on similar rowing challenges since 1966. The last death was of British rower Peter Bird, 49, who was lost at sea on his fourth attempt to row single-handedly across the Pacific in 1996. ====================================================== WELSH IRC ====================================================== The second Welsh Indoor Rowing Championships took place on the 27th of February. With nearly 100 people taking part the entry was double that of the previous year. Tom Wittram of Cardiff University retained his Men's Open title in 6:21, while Danny Froud was the fastest lightweight with 6:27. In the women's event, Great Britain single sculler Kirsten Brook pipped Weslh national Sally Daw by a second with a time of 7:17. Fastest female lightweight was Karianne Backx, the Dutch girl winning in 7:40. The Welsh IRC also features a unique team contest where four rowers have to cover 4,000 metres, changing seats as little or as often as they liked. For the second year running three Bridgend firemen and Newport RFC second-row forward Paul Jones denied Wales's top rowers by taking the crown again for the Physique Gym, Brackla. Firemen Ian Greenman, Carl Yardley and Nigel Davies joined with Jones for a scorching 11:55, 15 seconds up on a Welsh Amateur Rowing Association Veteran team headed by Wale's national rowing coach Damien Hammond. Full results will go up on the regional race section of our web-site (http://www.concept2.co.uk/v4/local.htm) shortly. ====================================================== OVER TO YOU ====================================================== Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your tales of tears. As the popularity of long distance events continues to grow (see "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" above), what we want from readers are any stories and tips they have of a) doing long distance rows, whether a team 100k row, a 42,194 metre marathon or whatever or b) working towards one of the distance award scheme. Just send 'em in to webmaster@vermonthouse.co.uk, and hopefully we'll be able to present a special "Long distance and Distance Award Scheme" section at some point in the future, although probably with a snappier title. ____________________________________________F E E D B A C K Like what you read? Dislike what you read? Ideas for future newsletters? Make sure to tell us at mailto:webmaster@vermonthouse.co.uk _________________________________________________________ _______________________________________SUBSCRIPTION INFO If you think you're on this mailing list accidentally, just return the e-mail with "unsubscribe" in the subject header. 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