News

From the Rowperfect twitter account row we got this message from the USA indoor rowing championships, the CRASH-B Sprints.

 @ROW_CRASH_B : Rower? Artist? 2010 CRASH-B Sprints holding a design contest for the official event t-shirt. Email gcuddy@crash-b.org for info.

So any budding graphic artists - go for it!

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Jon Winter was in US LM4x at the Worlds.  He had to fund the trip himself once he got selected adn did so using a blog and emailing group list.  I paid some money to his campaign and so was part of the group getting his updates.

They were great, insightful and gave much more detailed information about what REALLY was going on for him and his crew than a PR person could possibly have given.

Rowperfect decided to interview him for this blog - here's what he has to say.

1 - what gave you the idea of blogging as payment for sponsorship funding? 

Had you done something like this before?

In the past, I have sent out e-mail messages to friends and family.
Mostly as updates on my rowing travels abroad.  In 2006 when I raced at U23 World Championships, I just did e-mail messages.  When I went to the Banyoles World Cup, I decided to create a google group.  It made things much easier to keep track of.  In Banyoles, I did a similar thing in terms of messages, but the group was smaller.
Usually I would send one every day and then one after each race.  As more friends and family heard about the list, it grew and grew.  I received many e-mails from people telling me how much they enjoyed reading the updates, so when I was approved to go to the Luzern World Cup, I thought maybe other people I didn't know would be interested in reading.  I figured that I was writing these messages regardless, so I may as well see if anyone was willing to pay to be on my private list.

2 - how many people gave you money?  Of these, how many did you not know beforehand (like me)?

For the Luzern World Cup, everything was very last minute.  I think the offer went out while I was already in Luzern, so I only got 2 or 3 people.  I didn't really spend much time marketing the idea, because I was in Switzerland getting ready to race.  For World Championships, we also didn't have much time to get things in order.  We had some other individuals sponsor us, so as people donated, I added them to my list.
 I think there were 10 - 15 people added to the list.  I didn't know about 10 of the people beforehand.

3 - How much did you raise and how much did you hope to raise?

We raised about 10,000 USD.  Some from rowing clubs, some from family, some from our website and e-mail list (www.quadsculls.org).  The total expenses for the trip were 30,000 USD, so I guess our goal was 30k, but I don't think we ever expected to raise all that money.  The main problem is that we were named Aug 7, left for Poland Aug 14, racing started around Aug 23.  30k would be much easier to raise over the course of months rather than days, but that's what you deal with when you are rowing a non-funded event in the USA.

4 - what was the hardest part of keeping the blog going while preparing to race?

I actually really liked to write during the regattas.  Much of the time, you just sit around waiting to race.  It helps me keep my mind off things, and it also helped me analyze my race…mainly because after each race, I would have to write down a re-cap of what happened.
 If I didn't do this, I probably wouldn't be able to remember what I was thinking during the race.  Writing the blogs helped me understand where my strengths and weaknesses are.

5 - which bit(s) of your blog (photo, commentary, questions answered etc) did readers say they liked the most?  Why do you think that is?

I stared doing a Q&A section while in Poznan, and I think most people really liked this part.  I started Q&A because thought the audience would enjoy hearing the answers to questions I received.  To some extent its difficult to give every reader a complete context of what is going on.  Some are rowers and understand what it feels like to race 6 boats across.  Others are not rowers and don't really understand.  I think the Q&A gave both the rowers and non-rowers a better understanding of my experience, and that seemed to really get people excited.

6 - what advice would you give US Rowing as a result of your experience this summer?

I think there are plenty of other US National Team athletes who keep up private e-mail lists.  The e-mail updates could be a way to let the donors feel more involved.  Its great to have your name on a list in the brochure, but if you really wanted to get donors excited about regular giving, you would give them an insight into the experiences of the athletes.  The donors would have a chance to get to know the people they support, and that is much better than your name on the side of a boat.

7 - do you know how the US Lwt 8+ did in their fund raising compared to yours?  Did anyone else do stuff like this?

I think the Lwt 8 raised about 20k USD.  With a bigger boat, you have a larger contact list and thus more donors.  The per-capita amount raised is about the same as us.  Other athletes wrote blogs and e-mail updates, but I think they were confined to family and friends.

8 - anything you'd like to ask us…?

GB seems to have excellent corporate sponsorship for the rowing team.
Do you think this is due to a higher status of rowing within the culture, or do you think it is based on the success of the team?  What do you think US Rowing/USA athletes could learn from the sponsorship situation of the GB team?

[ I answered this last privately - but what do you all think?]

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I was frustrated just watching the live updater from FISA and the results service .  Doesn't really give a good view of what 'really' happened in the races.  You can't see if soneone is just cruising ahead of the pack or really sweating to make the times published.

Anyway, several countries are plugging their team results pretty hard online.  Makes it easy to see which crews they think stand a chance of making finals.

Australia - Interviews with Performance Director Andrew Matheson who reviews the day's results "Probably one of the pleasing things with them is that there are a few things they can work on as well."  and M4- coach Tim Conrad

Great Britain - a 'confident' start according to official sources.  M2- won their heat as did Alan Campbell M1x in a storming time.  Why win with such a huge margin?  Does it show the opposition how fast they need to go to beat you?

Canada - their fancied crews include the mens pair… although it sounds like they haven't done a 2k race together yet (!)Love the headline "Canada places third in day one of World Rowing Championships" - made me think their crews were third out of ALL the countries.  LOL.

New Zealand - the official press release summary.  The Row2k view point and another report .  Overall they came first in four heats (LM1x, M2-, W2- and M1x). More analysis .

USA - the mens L8+  W2-, M2+ seem the hottest prospects in the pack for the US team.

New sites to follow @iwomensports Twitter following women in sport.  And for other countries  @infosportNZ , @usrowing and @ausrowing all prolific with information updates and links to good sites.

Quirky factoids

The opening ceremony was an 'unique' event and fascinated the Row2k blogger Oli Rosenbladt.

The 'tandem rig to end all tandems' was spotted by row2k

We saw a rig today that looks like one of those jokes you sometimes make when there's time to kill at the boathouse; one of the adaptive 4+ is rowing a double-bucket: stern pair both on starboard and bow pair on port. We'll definitely post photographic evidence of that one when we get it, for sure, and for those who are wondering, yeah, the boat was actually not moving badly.

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In close collaboration with The Rowing Service and Rachel Quarrell, Rowperfect is proud to support the 2009 Mystic Worlds Competition.

We introduce Mystic Worlds, the guessing game for the 2009 World Rowing Championships.

For those who haven't played Mystic before, all you have to do is choose which crew in each event you think will win the gold medal. The rules are simple: you must pick a winner in every event, and you can change your picks any number of times until midnight GMT on Wednesday 26th August 2009, which is the evening before the semi-finals begin. After this time, the competition is locked and we wait to see who has the biggest number of winners after all the finals are over.

For those who have played Mystic Henley in the past, this works essentially the same way, other than that crews count as successful if they are still in the running for the gold medal. You can re-use your Mystic Henley username if you wish, log in as usual.

Whoever picks the most 2009 world champions will be the winner, with ties to be decided by random draw. Anyone in the world is able to join in the competition.

Prizes for winners

For Mystic Worlds 2009, the winner's prize is a bundle of the following: a DVD of Paul Thompson's Rowing and Sculling , a copy of David and James Livingston's book Blood Over Water, and the DVD of the the FISA 2009 world championships, courtesy of sponsors Rowperfect and the Rowing Voice.

So if you want to play, register (if you haven't already done so), pick your crews, and sit back and watch how they do: before Wednesday 26th August you can make any number of changes, as we start to see which are fast and which slow.

Message your favourite crews

You can also use the message-board on the right of this page to add comments about your choices, or to send good luck to specific crews or teams.

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A classic hot Henley started today.

I am graced with a press badge and so will be in the press stand watching the racing and looking out for good rowing and close racing.

Henley Town looked magnificent and festive.

Here are Manchester University BC winning their race with Dreher Apex Sweeps.

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The prestigious USA IRA Championships Regatta was won by the University of Washington.  Their coaching adviser, Carlos Dinares, bought five second hand Rowperfects from us earlier this year.  He told us that the crew had been exclusively training on the Ropwerfects.  They also did testing and selection on the RP.

He also coaches Ursula Grobler who rows in the Spanish national LW2x crew.

He brought the crew over to race Oxford University during their preparation for the Boat Race on the Tideway in London.  Here's a video of that race . 

Carlos says

Thank you to you Rebecca and Grant. We won the National Championship and Ursula got a silver medal at the World Cup in Banyoles.
Thank you for helping me,

Carlos Dinares
Seattle, USA

Here is a photo of their ergo lab.

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