Page Text

WELCOME: ISSUE #108

WAY

IMON

: S

PHOTO

Welcome to our June / July magazine, which celebrates summer racing and the thrill of being out on the water in warmer temperatures.

Racing comes in many different formats and the British Rowing calendar offers something for everyone, regardless of their ambitions, experience or lifestyle. There is much to look forward to over the next few weeks. Coming soon will be the crew-on-crew showdowns on the iconic course at Henley Women’s Regatta and Henley Royal, attracting some of the best rowers in the world, followed by the GB rowers performing on home water at the Glasgow 2018 European Championships in August. The last time they raced before a home crowd was in 2013 and the team are excited to compete in front of their friends, families and of course GB sports fans. Glasgow 2018 is a new project, bringing together six existing, and previously standalone, European Championships under one championships in the same city, and giving fans from other sports the chance to watch rowing. It promises to be a great event.

Athletes and spectators also have the multilane competitions of our own championship series to savour, with juniors, seniors, masters and adaptive rowers racing from clubs all over the country. But if you are dreaming of the beach, then head to Sandbanks in Poole where the second British Rowing Offshore Championships will be held on 18-19 August, preceded by the Commonwealth Beach Sprints on 17-18 August. For the first time ever, we also have the Power8 Sprints to enjoy on Sunday 22 July, offering city-based crews shorter and more explosive races over 350m. The highlight of the popular Bristol Harbour Festival, these British Rowing sprints will showcase our sport to new audiences and will be televised live on BT Sport. If you would like to try out sprint racing for yourself then it is not too late to enter events such as the 500m Danson Dashes in Kent. After being revived last year, the relaunched competition will offer a full regatta programme this year. Find out more on page 64. This edition also spotlights the wonderful traditional river regattas around the country,

providing fun racing with a festival feel for everyone in the local community to enjoy. All these different competitions offer a range of experiences for rowers, volunteers and spectators – something we are increasingly focused on. Diversifying and presenting our sport in different ways to attract wider audiences, and of course more rowers, is a key element of our vision and will benefit our core rowing community too. Underpinning all of these competitions is the new Competition Framework, including the updated British Rowing Online Entry System, BROE2. We shall be assessing how it performs over the summer, as well as looking ahead at possible future developments which the personal ranking index can support, such as club rankings, and national and local leagues. Enjoy the summer racing and watch this space!

ANDY PARKINSON CEO of British Rowing

Above: Spectators enjoying the festival feel at Bewdley Regatta britishrowing

JUNE / JULY 2018 | ROWING & REGATTA | 01