OTW with Matt Miller, Part III: First Impressions, Henley and London

Causing a stir in South Kensington (Photo: Matt Miller)

Matt and the UVa boys have arrived in England, and are now training at the course as the boat tents begin to fill up and crews from all over the world come pouring into the little town of Henley-on-Thames. Miller describes a little bit of the work they have been doing on the water, and gives a sense of the atmosphere around the regatta venue in the days immediately prior to the event. In addition to training, the UVa squad has enjoyed a trip to London, which they finished off with dinner at the London Rowing Club (my former home away from home) on the Putney Embankment. 

Here's what Matt has to say:

Apart from long lines at Dulles Airport, travel to our new home in Henley was uneventful. The red-eye put us into Heathrow around 8:00 AM Monday, and immediately there were a number of adjustments to be made to our new surroundings. We anticipated the exchange rate from dollars to pounds, but were surprised by prices, particularly food prices. In most cases, $3 of food in the US costs £3 here. I’m just glad not to be paying for gas!

UVa with CUBC oars, near the Angel on the Bridge (Photo: Matt Miller) 

For me, the jet lag wasn’t bad; I slept better than most on the plane. Some of my teammates spent the afternoon napping, but we all rallied Late in the afternoon to make a trip to the course for our first practice in England. The Cambridge oars we will be using were delivered to our house, so we had an interesting walk through the streets of Henley with twelve sweep oars, much to the amusement of several passers by. We spent hours assembling and rigging two brand new Hudson boats to the specific rig of our boats back in the states (an 8+ and 4+).

London Rowing Club (Photo: Matt Miller) 
The course and surrounding areas are unreal. All grassy areas are maintained like putting greens, and the boat tents and locker rooms are better than most permanent collegiate rowing facilities. Even the grass under the boat tents feels like a golf course. It’s hard to believe that the area is a field the rest of the year. The river has been particularly windy the past few days, but otherwise I love the weather, with highs in the 60s (F) making for great training weather. Unfortunately, the narrow waterway is starting to get crowded as more teams show up for Friday’s time trials or the main event next Wednesday.

Practices have generally been short. The V8 is adjusting to high rates in a headwind, while the V4 begins to taper for their Friday time trial. Pieces against other crews have broken the monotony of laps of the course on our own. Tuesday afternoon, Leander asked the V8 to provide competition for a 40 stroke start. On Wednesday morning, the V8 raced another Leander boat in 2x750m pieces. Both were a reminder of the high expectations and fierce competition of European rowing. The V4 got their own competition in three 500m pieces against Brown’s women’s eight. Both crews looked good, and our four feels prepared to qualify Friday afternoon for races next week.

The excitement of Wednesday morning pieces was only the beginning. The team took buses into London just after practice for some sightseeing. The team split into groups to see the Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, London Eye, Harrods, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The night ended with a dinner at London Rowing Club in Putney. It was great to meet the LRC coaches and rowers, some of whom are Olympians. Virginia will be cheering for them as they race in the Wyfold, Visitors, Thames, and Britannia Challenge Cup events. The team will continue sightseeing on Monday as the team visits Warwick Castle. -MM

The Henley Qualifying Races take place tomorrow, so the UVa men will get their first test and taste of racing on the course in the time trials. We wish them the best of luck and look forward to more news from the Thames!

Upcoming: RR Picks and Predictions for Henley Royal Regatta, and Championship Regattas and Automatic Qualifiers – Potential Pitfalls 

-RR

Trending posts this month

"I Row Crew" — Rowing in 'The Social Network'

Image
Like many of the rowing faithful, I've been keeping up with the saga penned by Dan Boyne about the filming of the rowing scenes in David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network , and I must say I had high hopes going into the film. The first problem I encountered: the phrase, "I row crew." It was uttered so many times before anyone "rowed crew" on the water that I had trouble buying any of it later. It's understandable that the character of Mark Zuckerberg makes that mistake, since he has no idea about the sport. But when the Winklevoss twins themselves utter the phrase several times, one begins to wonder where Boyne was when these lines were not being chopped or changed. Seriously, who says that? As far as the actual rowing goes, the first scene, which has the twins out training in a pair along with the rest of the Harvard squad, is not all bad — it just ends that way. The line, "Those guys are freakin' fast" is certainly every b
Read more

Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? At Marin Rowing Association, Culture is Key

Image
Hands in after training  My alarm goes off—it’s 4:22am.  It’s been a while since I did this. Immediately, I think back to a college dorm room, rolling out of bed and running down the steps to carpool caravan to Marina Del Rey.  Not this time, though. It’s a Tuesday in late September, and I’m heading across the Golden Gate Bridge to Greenbrae, California, where I’ll meet with the Marin Rowing Men’s Masters squad. Fortunately, it’s an unusually warm morning—and when I roll in, the boathouse is already buzzing with activity.  Launch time: 5:10. Heading out into the Bay before dawn The Marin Rowing Association program has both men’s and women’s masters boats competing to win at every event they attend. In the fall, that can only mean one thing: The Head Of The Charles .  The boat that Coach Rodrigo Rodrigues and I spend most of our time with is the Grand Masters eight—average age 60+. But that’s just one of five crews that launched with us that morning. Everyone’s up before 4:30am. So, wh
Read more

The 30 Best Rowing Coaches of All Time, Part 3: The Top 10

Image
The top 10 best rowing coaches, including guess who (Photo © Iain Weir / Rowing Photography ) It's time for the third and final part of our 3-part series on the best of the best in the rowing coaching ranks. These coaches not only command respect based on performance, but have also shown the ability to adapt to new circumstances, build dynasties, and ultimately help shape the trajectory of rowing as a sport. Honestly, it would be easy to extend this series into 10 more posts... But we wouldn't do that to you. As we've said before, the hope is that the following may serve to educate and spark discussion, as both an appreciation of history and of the coaching craft. Also note: As we stated in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, there are few women in this list, but that is a reflection of a general underrepresentation of women in the head coaching ranks in our sport—and indeed (as has been well documented ) a growing number of NCAA sports in the United States.
Read more

Video Of The Week: Holland Beker 2013

Image
This week's video comes to us from the Bosbaan, where the 2013 Holland Beker saw truly elite, international competition over the weekend. Perhaps the most outstanding racing came in the women's single, where the A Final closely mirrored a world championship or Olympic final in recent years—the lineup included two-time Olympic champ Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus, Kim Crow of Australia, New Zealand's Emma Twigg , reigning Olympic champion Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic, another two-time Olympic champion (albeit in the women's eight) in Eleanor Logan , and 2012 Olympic bronze medalist (also in the eight) Chantal Achterberg of Holland.  As it turned out, the final was a wire-to-wire victory for Kim Crow, who looks to be on top form and may be the athlete to beat in this event for the foreseeable future, holding off both Karsten and Twigg in the closing stretch, with Knapkova finishing fourth. Elle Logan had another solid race in a great field, finishing just ove
Read more

So, are Naked Rowing Calendars a Thing Now?

Image
Warwick rowers are all in again this year (Photo courtesy of Warwick Boat Club)  The phenomenon started four years ago with the Warwick Rowing men's squad. Then, the following year, the Warwick women's team joined the fray. Now, Newcastle University's men and women are back on the naked calendar train. So, the question is, have rowing and naked calendars become a thing? The above video features the 2014-2015 Warwick women's squad—the third edition of the calendar , and, from the looks of it, the raciest. However, perhaps not so racy as that of the 2014-2015 Warwick men (see below). But raciness aside, all four of these teams have chosen worthy charities and have gone "the full monty" to make sure that those causes have received considerable contributions. The Warwick women contribute to Macmillan Cancer Support —a cause for which Warwick reports it has donated some £5,000. The Warwick men? Sport Allies —a charity that combats homophobia in spor
Read more