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Rowperfect UK is supporting the World Firefighter Games and Mersey Rowing Club with Dreher sculls which will be brand new for the Games.

They run in Liverpool from 24 August until 2 September.  After the games, they will pass to Mersey RC who will be using them for their club sculling programme.  They have chosen Apex Sculls, 288 cm midpoint (+/- 5 cm adjustment), 88 cm inboard, medium stiffness, medium handle.Many thanks to Andy Coyne of Mersey RC for setting up the association.

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Jesus College Boat Club, Cambridge are looking for 10 cleavers (5 bowside, 5 strokeside) and 5 traditional wooden macons (3 bowside, 2 strokeside) to be painted up and made into presentation oars. Second hand blades, or blades that are no longer rowable but still look the part would both be suitable.

If you think you can help, even if you only have one or two oars that you'd like to sell, please contact Andy at:

Email:  jcbc-admin[at]jesus.cam.ac.uk

Mobile: 07812 476 506

Thanks, have a good summer on the water.

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Getting ready for the rescheduled mens and womens eights races this morning, followed by singles quarter finals and repecharges for M2-, W2x, M2x, M4-

The Draw and Results

BBC Live Webstream TV 

Womens 8.  Progression: First to Final, rest to Repecharge. Heat 1.  USA leads off in a blistering pace for first 500m chased by Germany and Great Britain neck and neck. Half way US has a length on GB who are second and who push hard to close to 2 secs behind US on the line.  6.06.  Heat 2. Romania lead from start to finish leaving a fight for second place between the Netherlands and Australia which the Aussies win to come second by under half a second.  6.05.

Mens 8.  Progression: First to Final, rest to Repecharge. Heat 1. Canada lead from start to finish.  They had 3 seconds on Poland by half way and 7 seconds at the finish.  Poland and the Netherlands are almost the same speed to the last 500 when Poland outsprint them by a boat length. Australia look like they knocked it on the head after half way and paddled home.  5.27.  Heat 2.  After 500m three boats abreast, Great Britain, USA and China.  By half way the Brits have a lead of 2 seconds and hold onto this to finish first by 4 seconds.  USA in second beating China and Germany.   5.25. [later update.  Australia report steering equipment failure]

Womens 1x Quarter Final.  Progression: First three to Semi Final A & B, rest to Semi Final C & D.   Quarter Final 1. Michelle Guerette of USA wins by over a length from Poland and Italy.  7.28.  Quarter Final 2. Knapova of Czech Republic leading the race from start to finish chased by Sophie Balmary of France and Iva Obradovic of Serbia and they finish in that order 7.30.  Quarter Final 3.  Australia's Pippa Savage leads off the start but is quickly overtaken by Zhang of China and Neykova from Bulgaria who push it all the way together Neykova winning by half a length. Australia third. 7.22. Quarter Final 4.  Karsten starts conservatively but by 500m has taken the lead.  Chased by New Zealand and Sweden who starts a sprint to the line to close to 1.5 lengths on the line. 7.25.

Mens 1x Quarter Final.  Progression: First three to Semi Final A&B, rest to Semi Finals C & D.  Quarter Final 1. Campbell of Great Britain, Hacker of Germany and Vonarburg of Switzerland quickly pull away from the rest.  Campbell under rating the other two but drops back to third place by 1000m,  Campbell creeps back over Vonarburg who looks like he put too much into the second 500.  Campbell sprints hard and finishes 1.5 lengths behind. 6.48.  Quarter Final 2.  Olaf Tufte of Norway inches out to lead by 750m over a comfortably slower field.  But gets chased to the line by Griskonis Lithuania and Christou of Greece third. 6.53. Christou must be pleased as he only got an Olympic qualification because China's sculler was doubling up. [and then he didn't race].  Quarter Final 3.  Synek of Czech Republic and Maeyens of Belgium lead easily by 1500 with Hardcastle of Australia in third.  They finish in that order. 6.50.  Quarter Final 4. Drysdale of New Zealand, Hamburger of the Netherlands and Karonen of Sweden look stronger than the rest.    Mahe pushes though in the third 500m. Karonen pushes hard to stay with Drysdale who finishes 3 feet in front while USA's Jurkowski has rowed down Hamburger to gain third.  6.50

Mens 2- Repecharge. Progression: First three to Semi Final A/B, rest to C Final. Two pairs of brothers - Winkelvoss for USA and Skelin for Croatia.  Skelins lead out and the USA stay with them to 1000m.  Danes creep up on the far side.  Last 500m the USA takes the lead from Croatia with Denmark and Croatia also qualifying. 6.36.

USA pair uses Magik Gates. … didn't spot that in their heat.

Womens 2x Repecharges. Progression: First and Second to Final, rest to B Final. Repecharge 1. Half way Germany and Great Britain lead chased hard by Romania and Italy.  Last 500 and Brits push on hard to come back on the Germans.  Still pushing hard.  Nearly level with the Germans. On the line the Brits win, Germany second, Romania third. 6.54.   Repecharge 2. USA leading at half way by clar water with Australia and Czech chasing. USA win by 3/4 length from Czech and Australia third. 6.58.

Mens 2x Repecharge.  Progression: First three to Semi Final A/B, rest to C Final. Russians lead out from the start and by half way the Belgian double and USA chasing ahead of Iraq and Bulgaria.  The Ianikev brothers in Bulgarian crew start to sprint with 500m to go.  Gelgians holding on to second place. USA son't seem to have noticed them and so lose out on qualifying.  Russian win by a canvas from Belgium who have a canvas on Bulgaria with USA half a length behind. 6.23.

Mens 4- Repecharge.  Progression: First three to Semi Final A/B. Czech (wearing natty white knee socks) and French crews leading.  China falling back.  Half way the Czechs have 3/4 length over France and Belarus a canvas behind. Czech win, France second and Belarus third. 5.58.

USA pair uses Magik Gates …. didn't spot that in their heat.

Mens 1x E & F Semi Final.  Semi Final 1.  Enjoying watching Rod Ideus from Tideway Scullers compete for Columbia here Not bad for a lightweight..  He comes in second behind the Iranian sculler, Shadi Naghden. 7.20.  Semi Final 2.  Hernandez from Venezuela leads from start to finish while Cameroon and Algeria swap places and Cameroon comes in 5 seconds ahead on the line.  7.18.

that's it for today. 

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The games are opened - waiting for our Heat 

It was my first opening ceremony and it was a great experience. Germany walked in as Number 199 of 204 Nations. This was the reason, why it was possible to take part at this event.

First we had to wait almost 2 hours in the National Indoor Stadium, but it was possible to sit down and we got drinks and food. It was an unbeliveable feeling to walk into this huge stadium and see all this people. The highlight to me was the moment when they ignited the olympic flame. The way they did it was great too. 

The games are opend and our races will start with the heat today. We'll row agaist Poland, France and Ireland . 3rd place will be enough to go directly to the Semi-Final. We'll see what happens today. Our goal is to go directly to the Semi on Thursday. 

Jochen

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The visibility just dropped significantly and they have stopped racing in the Olympic Rowing with the womens and mens eights races held over to race tomorrow.

That is a disruption to the crews' preparations. 

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Richard Chambers has written another installment from Beijing.

Thanks to the Guardian.co.uk for hosting his blog.  Richard's blog link.

I have just looked at the Olympics countdown clock on my computer and it is no longer counting the days. I've had the clock on my screen for the last 200 days and to see it so static and still is making me sweat. The last time I wrote, just before leaving the UK, was little over a week ago but it seems like an age. Since then we have travelled to China on business class (well somebody has to do it!) and begun the process of acclimatisation and tapering.

Upon arriving in China we were warmly greeted by friendly faces and humid weather. The Chinese are amazing, they will do anything for us and are willing to help in any way possible. It's been great so far. We've even had evening drinks with the British ambassador - although when I say drinks I mean apple juice and plenty of water - and we're ready for our first race tomorrow.

The British rowers are not staying in the Olympic village for the first week of competition. Our well-organised management staff have got us accommodation next to the Shunyi rowing course , which will be a significant competitive edge. But we have visited the Olympic village, which was something else. There is more security than Fort Knox but once you are inside it is phenomenal.
To be honest I didn't know what to expect, but the Chinese have really spared no expense. There are games rooms, TV rooms, gyms, swimming pools and so much more. But what I really want to talk about is the food hall. Wow. It sits 6,000 and has so much food there that not even our heavyweight men could polish it all up. With food choices from Asian to Mediterranean I didn't know where to start, so I had a bit of everything. Stuff being a lightweight for an hour!

The Shyuni rowing course is very much like Dorney only a little bigger, and training on the course has been going well. But after being out here for a week now we are itching to get racing: we have done all that we can in our crew to put ourselves in the best possible condition - now it's up to us to perform.

Our draw came out on Thursday and we are going up against some tough opposition but who said it would be a walkover? All of our races from the heat to the final will be gut-busters. To be honest the mood in the four is sometimes tense but that works for us, it means we know that something big is coming up and feeling nerves is a good sign. All the years of training will come into play in the next week or so. We want to make the most of it and I'm sure we will. We are ready to race.

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Draw for the Olympic Regatta

 BBC Webstream for Rowing Heats

Womens singles.  Progression: first 3 go to Quarter Finals.  China wins heat 1 easily.  Emma Twigg for NZ wins heat 2.  Karsten wins heat 3.  Neykova wins heat 4 (Cuba second!). Bascelli of Italy easily beats Australia into second place in heat 5.  Knapova leads easily in heat 6.

Mens singles.  Progression: first 4 go to Quarter Finals. Maeyens from Belgium leads heat 1. Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand easily leads head 2.  [Shock the Chinese sculler didn't show and was disqualified], Karonen from Sweden beats Hacker from Germany in heat 3. Synek commanding in heat 4 for Czech Republic.  Heat 5 toughest yet: USA, Australia (Peter Hardcastle), USA (Jurkowski) and Alan Campbell of GB.  Campbell sculls a mature race and wins by clear water.  Heat 6 includes Rod Ideus fron Tideway Scullers who is a lightweight U23 and qualified to row for Colombia. Tufte of Norway and Hamburger of Netherlands pushing out in front.  Tufte has fabulous rhythm.

Maeyens and Synek use Magik Oarlocks . Alan Campbell and Peter Hardcastle are Rowperfect users.

Womens Pairs. Progression: first to final everyone else to Repecharge.  Heat 1 great line-up - could have been a final.  Three crews who have won world championship golds Belarus, NZ and Canada.  Belarus to the final.  NZ second.  Heat 2 Romania come through at 1500 to look so confident.  They took 3/4 length on Germany in about 25 strokes.

Mens Pairs.  Progression: First 3 go to Semi Finals; rest to Repecharge.  Heat 1 Canada, USA (the brothers who sued Facebook and won!), France - who win with a great finishing sprint; Canada almost seem to give up and get third.  Heat 2 Australia (Free, Ginn) have such a clear lead and dominate from the front.  Heat 2 includes New Zealand (Twaddle and Bridgewater) and Chalupa stroking the Czech crew who only qualified because the Austrians withdrew.   Skelin Brothers for Croatia don't look like they are in the same competition.  New Zealand win.

Womens Double Sculls. Progression: first to Final, rest to Repecharge.  Heat 1 the Kiwi twins are leading with confidence - 6 seconds ahead of the rest on the line.  Heat 2 the Chinese world champions (just) beat the Czechs into second.  GB third.  Wonderful challenge by the Czechs - should have gone a bit later, might have had the jump on the Chinese.  Wicked sprint from the Chinese after challenge from Czechs Antosova and Varekova.

Mens Double Sculls.  Progression: First three to Semi Finals, rest to Repecharge. Heat 1 Belarus lead out from New Zealand and USA (Coached by Tim McLaren).  Great race - if the Belarussians get their pace judgment right they could be very dangerous later in the regatta.  Kiwis win in the sprint to the line.  Heat 2 Estonia (Juri Janssen and Tonu Endrekson) lead out challenged later by Great Britain (Wells and Rowbotham) who win with Croatia second as Estonians fade.  Heat 3 Chinese don't show AGAIN.  No reason given, just DNS (did not start).  Slovenia, France, Australia the crews to watch.  Aussies win but it seems strange that the Slovenians backed off.

The British double have used Rowperfect this year for the first time and Estonians are also Rowperfect users (from WAY back) as are Dave Crawshaw from Australia, he's the hunk on the front page of the Rowperfect brochure - rowing by the ocean.

Mens Fours. Progression: first three to Semi Finals, rest to Repecharge.  Heat 1 Great Britain in the middle lane with the USA and Italians also in the hunt.  GB holding the Italians off nicely through the second half of the race.  Heat 2 the Dutch are strong.  Slovenians row really nicely.  Dutch hold off the Kiwi late challenge.  Same time as previous heat.  Nothing to learn from the times except it'll be a great semi final and final.  Heat 3 Ireland, Australia - rowing beautifully.  Poise at the finish keeping the body leaning back while the handle continues to move around and lead onto the recovery.  Ireland beat them in the sprint for the line.  Jonno Devlin formerly of GB switching to row for them probably in order to get this trip to race in the Olympics.

Irish use Magik Gates.  

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The best new thing about the Rowing Regatta at the Beijing Olympics will be the improved online content and individualview points enabled by the social media tools now being used by athletes and journalists.

Rowperfect will be live blogging the regatta daily.

And we want to bring you an easy summary of the other places where rowers are writing about what's going on for their Olympic Regatta.  Please let us know if you find more we haven't listed.

Blogger Athletes from Beijing

Frances Houghton GB W4x on the BBC

Tom James GB M4- on his own site

Drew Ginn Australia M2- on his own site

Duncan Free Australia M2- on his own site 

Jochen Kuehner Germany LM4- on Rowperfect

Richard Chambers GB LM4- on the Guardian

Adam Kreek Canada M8+ on CBC 

Jason Read USA M8+ on WSJ's China Journal 

Row2k has three bloggers: Heather Mandoli from Canada W8+

Mahe Drysdale New Zealand M1x on New Zealand Olympic Committee site.  Mainly a photo blog 

Other online Rowing information sources about the Beijing Regatta 

A company, Lenovo, has given its laptops to a range of athletes including TJ and Ginn.  Link to all rowing bloggers on Lenovo  and a link to all the Voices of the Olympic Games bloggers on Lenovo.  Pretty interesting having so many different sports and countries and languages.

BBC Rowing summary page is good for online Rowing aggregated information from all its sources
Fan Blog - Nick heathcote , whose brother, Alastair is in the GB 8

Rowperfect Twitter stream for micro-blog updates (you can sign up to receive them as SMS messages on your mobile phone).

Now if you want to watch live sport in the UK here's some places to find it: 

 

BBC Coverage Mainly satellite / cable and Freeview 3. They also promise live webstream

And of course the BBC iPlayer will allow you to watch up to a week later.

Schedule for Olympic sports on the BBC for both weeks

The opening ceremony BBC1 12.45 Friday 9th August 

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Richard Chambers is writing for the Guardian.co.uk Newspaper website.

Here is his latest installment.  Richard Chambers Blog on The Guardian

 He makes the interesting observation about the amount of time training compared to racing…..

"In total the Team GB Lightweight Four will complete approximately 18 minutes of racing. For me that’s about 162 days training for each minute of racing!"

WHat I also like is his view that the regatta presents a "level playing field".  It is true that some crews have already raced their opposition during this season's World Cup regattas but as Eric Craies was wont to say "You're only as good as your last race!"  Meaning you write your name on the water - stop talking and prove your speed by going fast.

" All our results in this crew are in the past, this year’s world cup season and last years world championship result means nothing. We start on a level playing field. It’s all to play for."

Richard Chambers 

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The Rowperfect team has been working hard to get you some exclusive content and commentary about the forthcoming Olympic Regatta in Beijing .

We are adding new bloggers to our roster and so would like to introduce Richard Chambers - rowing for GB in the Mens Lightweight Coxless Four, Richard has been on our 'radar' for a while since his successful talk at the ARA Coaching conference last January.  More detail on Richard plus an interview he gave the World Rowing website last month. 

Richard's work will also be published on The Guardian Unlimited website - an official media partner of the British Olympic Association.

Duncan Holland will continue to give his expert commentary on the regatta, crews and how the race planning develops through the rounds of racing.  A New Zealander by adoption, Duncan has coached in Switzerland and the Netherlands on their Olympic and World Championship programmes and will offer a coaches' perspective on the regatta.

We are also hoping to get occasional athlete commentary from Jen Goldsack (USA), Jochen Kühner (GER) and Rod Chisholm (AUS).  Each representing different nations but some with connections to the UK!

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