Rower tension is the enemy of boat speed… getting all 8 in scratch crew to relax and apply the power in unison is a challenge. Congrats to you and Nantes crew. 🏅
Congratulations to you and your team mates for the medal and for the improvement through the regatta. The format of your commentary during the race as well as the summary after the race was a great presentation - I hope you can do more of that. I liked your discussion of rhythm, work, and boat speed: the way you discussed it through each race and explained what the crew was doing to try to improve the boat speed gave that aspect of rowing technique the attention it deserves. One's blade work might be beautiful and erg score great but in the end that bowball has to get to the finish line first! What a season your RU-vidrs have had with you! Flat water single and double including Henley Royal Regatta, then world coastal sprints - Gold! - and now the four and eight in a national championship. I am so pleased that you will be racing at HOCR. Some of my club mates will be there and I'll tell them to give you a big Elliot Bridge shout.
Glad you enjoyed the little bit of a difference! It’s been a fun summer this year! Looking forward to HOCR! I’ll probably be doing a meet up on Sunday too!
I’ve been posting on my Instagram that I am setting up a pick up there but I don’t think a lot of people have seen it so plan is to bring some over depending on my luggage allowance! Yamsquad.shop should be set up to have pick up on the Sunday of HOCR!
Team work makes the dream work. Sounds like your group never locked into a good solid swing early on , but with all doing what you could, props for giving it what you had.
Cam, fully agree that it’s disappointing not achieving the goals you set out with but going as two scratch crews to national finals and coming away with the the results you and the guys from Nantes did, is a pretty dam good result. Great example of one of rowing’s quirks where sometimes less is more - a brave call to make but you could immediately see the rhythm coming together and the gains in length. As for the 8, too much to change when all the calls come from the cox. A green 8+, could that be a certain ex German crew’s boat - “one careful owner-never raced” 😆 Enjoy the Head of the Charles (definitely on the bucket list) Rappelez-vous "la nourriture est un carburant" (🥖 is⛽️) 😎
It could be that they opened it up to have more fun. Dutch championships were a while ago and they were mostly won by Oxford Brookes. In the men's eight, they even beat the dutch Paris 2024 eight by 0.25 . It made for such a fantastic race.
