This past weekend, I went to the South African Rowing Championships with the rowing team here at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University! We left at 5am on Thursday and drove all day to the river, just north or Johannesburg. It was a bright sunny day, but the smog and pollution in Joburg is so bad it basically looked overcast in the city. Thank God we rowed just north of the city, so the pollution wasnt as bad! When we arrived, we headed straight to the river for a short rowing session. The part of the river that contains the racing course (2k in distance since it is sprint season here) has actually been dammed off, so the water is super calm but also super stagnant since there is little to no current flowing through it. As a result of this, there was a think, green algae in the water and when we rowed we got covered in it! Overall though, the river was really nice as well as the course, so the algae didnt bug me much. After a short water session on Thursday, we headed for Spar (the grocery store) to pick up food for a Braii, and then headed to our backpackers. The traffic in Joburg that it took us nearly an hour to make it 12k's to our backpacker! Thursday night, we spent time just relaxing, enjoying the Braii food and I spent time getting to know the other members of the crew.
On Friday, while waiting for the trailer and the rest of the crew to arrive at the river, we went our for breakfast and to a shopping center to kill time. Finally, after traveling all night, the rest of the crew arrived with our boats at about noon. We spent the afternoon going out on the water and putting the riggers on the boats. (For those of you who are non-rowers, the riggers are the metal "V" shaped pieces that hold the oars onto the boat.) Then, that night, we had another Braii and went to bed early in preparation of the races the next day.
Saturday morning, we left for the river at 4:30 (because of the horrible traffic) and arrived in time to get one of the first boats on the water for an 8am race. My first race was at 12:15, and it was a doubles race (meaning two people in the boat, each sculling, meaning we each had two oars instead of one) with another girl on the team, Angie. For never being in a boat together and hardly knowing each other, we rowed really well together! We were both about the same height as well, so that was helpful. We had kind of a sloppy start, but overall our race was pretty good! We finished 5/8, so we didnt medal, but I still consider it a good, solid race. My next race was an interesting one. It was a coxed 4, meaning there were four girls, including myself and the coxswain, making 5 total people in the boat. Our team had not brought a coxswain, so we borrowed one from Rhodes University, out of Gramstown, South Africa, just an hour west of Port Elizabeth. Borrowing coxswains from other teams is a typical thing, so this was nothing new, and I was excited for the race. Our start was solid and we were immediately out in front of every one else, however, I began to notice that about 500m into the race, we were headed for another teams lane! Sure enough, the Rhodes coxswain was steering us directly into not only another team's lane, but into another boat from her university! The other coxswain, also from Rhodes, began yelling at our coxswain and our coxswain began yelling back. The ENTIRE race instead of coxswaining us rowers, the coxswains were fighting the entire time, and not just yelling but screaming curse words and other inappropriate things. All the rowers were so distracted and confused, since we were basically hitting one another and everyone was screaming that we could hardly row. Never in my life have I been so upset about a race. I know rowing is different here in South Africa, but I am beyond disappointed in the sportsmanship I experienced in that race. It was clear the coxswain we borrowed threw the race for us and at the same time said extremely unsportsmen-like things. If this scenario had happened at any regatta in the United States, both teams would have been disqualified from the regatta and told to pack their boats and leave. It astounds me and makes me so angry that this went without punishment.
On Sunday we woke up early again and headed to the river for another day of the regatta. My first race, I actually rowed with the University of Johannesburg, in a women's 8! This was a lot of fun and super intense since it was such a big boat-this was probably the best race all weekend because I met so many new girls and being in a big boat was really fun. My next race was a woment coxless 4 and this was the race I had been most excited for but one that we didnt quite do as well as we had hoped. We placed 4/8, but had expected to do better. Up until this race I had never been pushed to such exhaustion that I became physically sick, but lucky me because after this race I got sick over the side of the boat about 5 times before we could finally dock. When we finally did get to the dock, I was informed that I had to hot seat directly into another boat for my women's quad four race. The quad is one of my favorite boats to be in because they are so fast and so fun, but I felt so awful it was hard to even stand up. A guy from the men's crew had to pick me up out of the boat and put me into the quad because I was so dizzy I couldnt stand. Oofta. By some miracle I make it through the quad race as well and we finished 3/5 so it was a pretty solid race.
Overall, the weekend was really fun. I enjoyed meeting and getting to know the members of the NMMU crew team and, despite being sick, I enjoyed getting to race again, especially here in South Africa!
No comments:
Post a Comment