Insider Rowing

Here’s who got the Oklahoma job. Good luck to Becky, who is a great coach.

Press release on OU gig.

Wow, the Canoe Club got condemned. Just when you thought there wasn’t anything interesting going on in rowing domestically, The Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections did a midnight lockdown of the aged Canoe Club, shutting out the crews of Temple University, La Salle High School, Father Judge, North Catholic, in addition to the various dragon boat crews.

See the article here in the Philly Inquirer. See related from NBC10: Surprise closure leaves crew teams without boathouse.

Video news piece is located on this page.

Money quote from Temple’s Gavin White:

“We’ve won the National Championship 21 times in the last 25 years. Then, all of a sudden, you’re out. Put out of your boathouse with no notice.”

I want to put a plug in for a cool new resource, Coach2.org, which provides free teleconference seminars once per month on crew coaching. File this one under continuing education. Dan McNair, an assistant coach for Georgia Tech, put this thing together, and I think it’s a fantastic idea. FINALLY some free and up-to-the-minute stuff on coaching.

There’s a new teleconference TOMORROW with Casey Baker talking about technique. Casey was a long-time coach at Florida Tech and is now the southeast rep for Resolute Racing Shells. He’s a total badass when it comes to technique. Not sure if there’s room left on this call, but you might want to email Dan and ask. I’m eagerly awaiting this one.

Another long delay. Haven’t been blogging much this month due to other off-line business items getting taken care of.

What’s the best thing going on in rowing right now? That’s right, the Waddell vs. Drysdale drama escalating in New Zealand. Waddell and Drysdale raced at the Cambridge Town Cup in Lake Karapiro over the weekend, with Waddell taking the race by .99 seconds, a much slimmer margin than from round 1. Apparently Mahe dislocated his toe a day prior to the race, but did it have an affect?? Read a good race report here from the nzherald.

Drysdale continues to be irked by the selection process. Money quote from the nzherald:

“If I got the spot and I finished with a silver medal, it’s something I could never forgive New Zealand Rowing for because that [trialling with Waddell] is the obvious thing I would look at.”

There are rumors and whisperings, unsubstantiated of course, that Drysdale might try a switch to Australia, possible because he holds dual citizenship. Read the story here by Dylan Cleaver, again at nzherald, and don’t forget to flip to page two for the anonymous Kiwi national teamer who slams on Mahe for “whingeing.” Awesome stuff.

For more Kiwi badass fun-ness, see this news clip of the race, where Devin Storey is calling it “Ali vs. Foreman”:

Definitely check out this cool 6″ documentary piece on Mahe from Trans World Sport:

Did you row over the holidays? Perhaps a 100k ergo challenge? 200k? How about rowing across the Atlantic, with 12 hours on and 12 hours off for two months straight? The Atlantic Rowing Race is going on right now and that’s exactly what the competitors are in the middle of. You can track race progress on their great website. Current race leader Pura Vida has put in 1716 miles with 836 to go.

As previously reported here, the Atlantic Angels crew is a women’s four from Britain attempting to break two records, the all-female crossing record and youngest rower–one member of the crew, Rachel Flanders, is 17. The Angels have been at sea for 34 days, having covered 933 miles with 1619 to go. There’s a great documentary video on Youtube covering the origins of the team and their launching (see after the jump):

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Happy Holidays everyone! Have a prosperous and successful 2008, and thanks for reading!

So what are your goals for 2008, rowing or otherwise? Here are a few on mine…

Goals for Insider Rowing in 2008:

• Blog consistently, at least 3-4 good posts per week. I’d like to get to a point where I can post every single day, but I need to solidify my content sources.
• Increase the readership of this blog to consistently over a 100 unique visitors per day.
• Make this blog a daily stop on your round of rowing information.
• Create a new “look” for the site, either from scratch or using a template that I modify. The current look is starting to look dated IMO.
• Some content ideas: interviews with coaches and rowers, original video, race coverage, gear reviews.

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Just stumbled on this in the September issue of fOARRowers, the official (online) mag of the Masters Rowing Association. It’s a SIX page article on the origins and meaning of Bihvhar…you’ve seen the t-shirts, you’ve heard the mantra, ever wondered what it meant? Well here you go. Author Zachary Franklin also writes that Bihvhar is the future of masters rowing, which is an interesting thesis in and of itself. It just doesn’t stops. It never stops.

Check out bihvhar.com immediately.

There’s some good content at the MRA site, check it out also…

When I first saw this I nearly shat myself:

A Once A Runner movie! Totally effing AWESOME!!!!

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