Welcome

What an honour it is to be a GB Rowing Team supporter and we are all extremely grateful to our amazingly talented rowers for whom we love to ROAR! We are appreciative of the hours that they spend training to experience hopeful success both nationally and internationally. We send our thanks to them for ‘entertaining’ us through the Junior squads, who so wonderfully combine school work and rowing training, through to the Under 23s, often amalgamating this brilliant sport with studying at uni, or earning a living! Hours and hours of training can at times lead on to Senior success, where the world turns to watch and admire through anxious eyes. Thank you to our amazing GB Rowing Team, GB Coaches and GBRT Staff, for making many dreams a reality, and no matter what the weather, organising and training for our GB WORLD SUCCESS.

GO GB!

sarah tarrantCo-Ordinator, GBRTS

ContentsWelcome

Message from Sir David Tanner

GB Rowing Team Supporters (GBRTS)Essential Information

• How To Join• Discussion Forum• Get your Kit on •

Review of the 2013 Season :• World Rowing Senior Championships• World Rowing U23 Championships• World Rowing Junior Championships• Other Events Round-Up

Looking Foward - The 2014 Season:• 2014 Regatta Calendar• Guides for Supporters

Useful Website Links

GBRTS Committee

Newsletter: March 2014

After the many successes of the London 2012 Games the 2013 season provided both challenges and achievements for the GB Rowing Team moving into the Rio 2016 cycle.

2013 was a year of development, a year of welcoming new faces to the senior squad and saying goodbye to familiar ones. Overall 2013 provided the team with a great deal to be pleased with. There was some solid racing through Junior, U23 and Senior levels.

The GB Rowing Team attended their first ever World Cup competition in the Southern Hemisphere with encouraging results, including wins for the men’s eight, lightweight men’s double and women’s pair. These ‘new look’ boats combined established olympians with new blood. The remaining two World Cups took place in Europe; the second on home soil back in Eton Dorney, the venue of our 2012 success. This was a great legacy from the 2012 Games and recreated some of the excitement and atmosphere from the Olympic competition.

sir david tanner CBE performance director

The third World Cup in Lucerne proved to be the first real tough test of the post-Olympic year, there was a strong showing with most of the top international boats present to compete. Overall GB won the series and it was a great introduction for the new combinations.

The World Rowing Championships was a far-flung affair, taking place in Chungju, South Korea. I think we can all agree that no expense was spared by the organising committee when preparing for this event. The facilities were world class, the course infrastructure was ‘state of the art’ and the atmosphere at the course was exceptional. Emphatic wins were had by the men’s eight, who won GB’s first ever Championship gold in this event, and the women’s pair of Polly Swann and Helen Glover who, defending the success GB has had in this boat class, won gold in a convincing fashion, as did the LTA Para four, defending their Paralympic title in style. The men’s quad took an impressive bronze, another historic moment for GB. Four good bronze medals from our Lightweights competed the medal run.

The U23 and Junior rowers also performed well. Notably a gold medal in the women’s single at the World Rowing Junior Championships went to Jess Leyden, surely one to watch moving forward. There were also five medals won by the U23s in Linz: a gold, three silvers and a bronze - an impressive performance.

The GB Team laid a good base from which to step on into the 2014 season, of which there is much to look forward to, and with hard work more success to come on the road to Rio 2016.

a message from Sir David Tanner

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GB Rowing Team Supporters (GBRTS): Essential Information

How To Join:Membership is open to all, and costs £10 for a year’s subscription or £50 for a life membership. The £10 subscription covers up to two family members and the life subscription covers up to four individuals.

Application forms for membership or for renewing existing subscriptions can be downloaded from the British Rowing website at :

www.britishrowing.org/gb-rowing-team/supporters/membership

Get Your Kit On: Are You Being Seen?It’s the time of year to dust off those old polo shirts and fleeces ready to cheer on your favourite GB crews as the competitive season gets underway.A range of distinctive clothing for supporters has been developed and is on sale from ‘Rock the Boat’. More details will be available later in the year, but in the meantime further information can be obtained from ‘Rock the Boat’ (see link on page 7).

Discussion Forum

The GBRTS online discussion forum provides a medium for communication and an information resource for Family and Friends supporting rowers in GB Rowing Teams. This is the place for supporters to share their ideas, suggestions, experiences and knowledge with other supporters on anything from venue locations, acommodation details and travel plans.

The group provides a central point for sharing photos, spectator guides for each of the racing venues and details of GBRTS clothing. By joining the group you will ensure you have the most up to date information, can keep in contact with other Friends and Family and make the most of the opportunities to support the GB Rowing Team from Junior through to Senior level.

To subscribe to the group, please email

GBRTS-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk

If you have any difficulties with the joining process please email Robin Walker at rwoffenham@gmail.com. This group is only open to members of the Supporters Club (see above for how to join). Your contact details will be protected and moderators will ensure appropriate use is maintained.

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World Rowing ChampionshipsThe first FISA event ever to be held in South Korea was always bound to be intriguing, and certainly different. It clearly wasn’t an easy venue to get to, not only due to the length of the flight, but because the location of the regatta itself (Chungju) was quite remote. But a couple of dozen intrepid GB Rowing Team supporters shrugged aside these difficulties and made the trip regardless.

We were well rewarded because this was an outstanding regatta. Our Korean hosts had constructed a superb rowing course from scratch and they ran an exemplary event. The facilities were, at least, the equal of any other venue and the services provided were excellent. They may not have had much experience of major rowing events but they had certainly done their homework and had spared no expense – their budget was rumoured to have been of the order of $20 million, probably ten times what such events normally cost to run.The GBRT Supporters’ hotel – an hour’s bus ride away – was rather more idiosyncratic. The building itself was modern but it had some distinct peculiarities. For example, the bedrooms were so stuffed with furniture that you couldn’t open the drawers without stacking up some surplus armchairs and putting them out in the corridor. None of the reception staff admitted to knowing the hours of operation of the attractive-looking swimming pool (it gradually emerged that the answer was ‘never’). Equally, the restaurant did not always open when it might have been expected to (i.e. at mealtimes), while the bar opened only randomly and rarely and was in any case found to have little in the way of drinks on offer. Down at the lake, though, the action was magnificent. In this post-Olympic year many countries fielded relatively experimental teams and this showed through in the overall results.

review of 2013 In the Olympic events the 14 gold medals were shared among 12 countries, with GB and Norway being the only nations to win two of them. Our golds came from the very first and last finals on the programme.Helen Glover and Polly Swann won the women’s pairs with a commanding performance, as they had done throughout the year; this combination has proved to be just as dominant as our Olympic boat which Heather Stanning stroked rather than Polly. In the closing race of the regatta our men’s eight put together their best row of the season with an outstanding middle thousand metres that took them out of reach of the fast-finishing German Olympic champions. Meanwhile in the Para Rowing events the GB mixed four won their LTA event convincingly to reinforce our strong record in this event following last year’s Paralympic victory.GB crews also won five bronze medals. Four came from lightweight events – men’s four, double scull and pair and the women’s single scull – the other from an impressive men’s quad who came very close to toppling Croatia and Germany, who were respectively the reigning World and Olympic champions. There were also several fourth places and other finalists from the GB squad. FISA has published a DVD showing all the Chungju finals in full, available from New Wave (see web links on page 7).In the World Cup regattas earlier in the year GB again finished at the top of the table with a total of 179 points, ahead of New Zealand and Australia who took second and third places with 144 and 119 points respectively. In 2013, the GB team did not attend the European Championships (in Seville), but will be competing at the event this year – in Belgrade at the end of May.

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In 2013 the World Rowing Under 23 Championships were held in Linz, Austria. Five of the ten GB crews who entered came away with medals, with pride of place going to Eleanor Piggot and Brianna Stubbs who took gold in the women’s lightweight double scull – in a closely fought final they edged out their nearest rivals from Germany and New Zealand by just over one second. A similar margin separated our lightweight men’s four from the Italian gold medallists, but they held on for a strong silver medal. Another very strong result was shown by the women’s eight who took an excellent silver medal behind the USA and ahead of third-placed Germany, while their male counterparts took fifth place in the men’s event. The increasing strength and depth of GB’s lightweight squad was emphasised by the bronze medals won by our men’s lightweight pair and women’s lightweight quad, as well as Zak Lee Green’s achievement in reaching the lightweight men’s single scull final after having endured a period of illness.

World Rowing Under 23 Championships, Linz

World Rowing Junior Championships, TrakaiTrakai in Lithuania was the venue for the World Junior Championship. Competition was as fierce as ever at this event and medals were particularly hard to come by but our one victory was an outstanding achievement. In GB’s first open-weight women’s gold medal in this event, the single scull title was taken in convincing style by Jess Leyden of Hollingworth Lake RC, who rowed powerfully through the field to end with clear water over her nearest rival, from Belarus.

In the men’s eights event GB finished within 1½ seconds off gold but was squeezed into fourth place by a blanket finish of the first three crews. Germany emerged triumphant by one hundredth of a second. Three other British crews also reached the A finals – the women’s pair and the men’s coxed four and double scull.

Reports by Ron Patterson

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The men’s quad, with a late substitution due to illness, narrowly missed out on a medal finishing in fourth place.

2014: Regatta Calendar The venues chosen for the 2014 season are closer to home than last year’s globe trotting regattas. The World Rowing Championships will be held in Amsterdam for the first time since 1977. The World Rowing Junior Championships will be held in Hamburg and the World Under 23 Championships in Varese. Travel details for this year’s supporters events will be circulated as and when details are finalised. We are looking at alternative travel suppliers for this year’s regatta season. The Southern hemisphere World Cup regatta is remaining a fixture for the 2014 season, however the GB Rowing Team will not be competing this year, this is taking place in March in Sydney.

Guides for Supporters:One of the key benefits of being a member of the GBRTS is the opportunity to share information with fellow members. A key benefit has always been the ability to access useful information about venues from people that you can trust.We have created some Venue Guides for the 2014 regattas; some are far more detailed than others and all are living documents and will be updated through the year as and when we receive updates to include. Please take a look at the current details in the Venues 2014 folder on the Yahoo site. If you have previously been to one of the venues please do not hesitate to comment on the content and send through any useful updates.We have also worked on creating an introductory guide to rowing as we know that many parents, friends and family have been asking for a simple guide explaining the sport, the equipment, the competitions and also to provide some guidance on how best to support our athletes and help to ensure that they can perform to their maximum ability at events. The first draft of this guide has also been posted on the Yahoo site and we would welcome feedback on how useful this is for our members.

Dates Event Location28 - 30 Mar * World Rowing Cup I Sydney, AUS

9 - 11 May Munich Junior Regatta Munich, ger16 - 18 May International Para-Rowing Regatta Varese, ita

24 - 25 May * European Junior Championships Hazewinkel, Bel30 May - 1 Jun European Championships Belgrade, Srb20 - 22 JUN World Rowing Cup II Aiguebelette, Fra11 - 13 Jul World Rowing Cup III Lucerne, sui23 - 27 Jul World Rowing U23 Championships Varese, Ita6 -10 Aug World Rowing Junior Championships Hamburg, Ger10 - 14 Sep World Rowing Championships Amsterdam, Ned

* GBRT Not Competing

Looking Forward - The 2014 Season

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Useful Website Links

www.britishrowing.orgBritish Rowing (the national governing body). Look under the GB Rowing Team tab on the top right to find material relevant to the teams and international competition.

www.worldrowing.comFISA (the International Federation for Rowing). This site gives details about international events, results, profiles of athletes, etc.

uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/GBRTS A forum for discussion and exchange of information between members of GBRTS (requires password to access).

www.rock-the-boat.co.ukSuppliers of rowing and other clothing, including an exclusive range for GBRTS members.

www.newwaveuk.co.uk/Fisa-Products/FISA-DVDSuppliers of the official FISA DVDs of all recent Olympic/Paralympic regattas and World Championships.

http://www.amsterdamrowing.com/en/ –The website of this year’s Senior World Championships.

http://www.wru23ch2014.com/ The website of this year’s U23 World Championships.

http://www.juniorenwmhh2014.de/index.php?id=home&L=3 The website of this year’s Junior World Championships.

The GBRTS Committee

Sarah TarrantCoordinator

Peter BeaumontDeputy coordinator and venue information

Peter HodgeTreasurer and membership

Alex MowczanU23 team liaison

Elaine LaverickJunior team liaison

Ron PatersonNewsletter

Sue RodfordSecretary

Robin WalkerICT support

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