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Published byO RowingWI Ink N www.rowingservice.com/voicG oiec e 1: 16 July3 2007 CONTENTS RDiamonds are forever 1-6 V Hammer Smith 2-3 Missing in action 4 Henley Royal champions 3-4 Crime Desk 4 Bank that beat the world 5-6 BARJ Awards 2007 6 Redgrave’s return (picture) 7 Where to eat in Henley 7-8 Double-O-Scullers 7-8 Maidenhead Regatta 8 Rhapsody on the Charles 9 Commons v Lords 9 Marlow Regatta 9 Rant 10 Holiday Planner 10 Identity crisis 10 RowingVoice is pub- lished by Rowing Ink. Editors Rachel Quarrell and Christopher Dodd © RowingVoice™ Picture: © Peter Spurrier/Intersport Images All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced in any media without written permis- Diamonds are forever sion of RowingVoice Amsterdam, so it was no surprise that the Cana- Rachel Quarrell ties up the loose dians easily carried off the Grand Challenge Cup Contact: voice@ ends at Henley Royal Regatta 2007 in powerhouse style, almost as an afterthought. rowingservice.com There was talk of there being some problem with ales, floods and mud, glorious mud the Australian boat off the start, which was never tel 07710-538114 greeted the opening of Henley Royal fully explained. fax 0870-164-1650 Regatta this year, with crews strug- Ggling through difficult conditions during Friday’s The Canucks now move on to Lucerne this Published irregularly. qualifiers and spectators hunting out their stoutest weekend, where there will be considerably more Our grateful thanks to wellies. Nine days later the regatta ended in light competition. Meanwhile the GB seat-racing has breezes and balmy sunshine, with a general air of resulted in Tom Solesbury, injured for most of Peter Spurrier/ “what was all the fuss about?” So what did we the spring, coming back into the eight, replacing Intersport Images, make of Henley 2007? Hugo Lee. The rest of the line-up was intended Martin Richardson, to be unchanged from Amsterdam, but Robin Neil Lambert and Paul GRAND EXCUSES Bourne-Taylor has been injured, and will be Azzopardi/BigBlade for A week before racing proper began, and suddenly replaced by James Orme in Switzerland. there were a number of high-profile withdrawals, photographic contribu- which didn’t stop - two more international crews SPRINGBOKS UP FOR THE CUPS tions in this issue. pulled out during the regatta. The Grand was one The Silver Goblets was also badly hit by medical of the biggest casualties, with Germany getting withdrawals. First Colin Smith and Matt Lan- cold feet, and the British men’s eights group Publication of issue 4 gridge pulled out before the draw, because Smith splitting into three fours to do their next round of of the Rowing Voice is was ill, and needed to recover for Lucerne. Then selection seat-racing. planned for late August. on the night before the pairs’ first day of racing on We will have space for That left Canada, winners of the Linz world cup Thursday, world champion Duncan Free suffered a back twinge. a letters page in that regatta, against the new Australian combina- tion and the Czech Republic’s under-23 eight. Not wishing to risk it before the only world cup issue so send in your Despite having Aussie legend Jimmy Tomkins in he and partner Drew Ginn are racing at, the duo thoughts. the 7-seat, Australia’s best had underwhelmed at withdrew, leaving their side of the draw » The magazine that puts the Royal into Henley Voices Off page 2 » 16 July 2007 page 2 ROWINGVoice Voices off « wide open. Unsurprisingly Germans Andreas world lightweight record holder Zac Purchase Penkner and Jocham Urban sailed through to as their super-sub for training - (quote from Bow ballsup the final as a result. Annie Vernon, “he wasn’t too bad consider- The British men’s eight who lost ing”) and now have Debbie back in action for n the other rather unbalanced half of the Lucerne. their world cup heat in Amster- draw, the quarter-finals matched GB light- dam by a hundredth of a second, weights Matt Beechey and Danny Harte STEWARDS’ CHALLENGE so being required to progress Iagainst defending Goblets champion Barney through the repêchage, came It’s rare to fill a page of a Henley/GB article Williams and his new partner Scott Frandsen, without mentioning the boat about which the closer than they think. The jury rowing as Canada. This year poor steering had to blow up the photograph adjective ‘flagship’ is most often used. But dogged the Canadians’ efforts. Despite that in the face of the above reshuffles and some to giant proportions to determine they blew a hole in the lightweights, but could whether the Poles or the Brits extraordinarily good club-level racing, the not get past the considerably more polished Stewards’ Challenge Cup featuring double were in front. The Polish bow Ramon Di Clemente and Donovan Cech. ball emerged from thje gloom world champions Andy Hodge, Steve Williams, first, but only a bit of it. My outh Africa’s answer to Redgrave and Alex Partridge and Pete Reed, was something informant calculates that the dif- Pinsent are two-times winners, and get- of an quiet story. ference was close to 0.003 of a ting quite used to collecting Goblets in The biggest news broke just before the draw, second, or half a bow ball. SHenley. In the final, the Germans made a brave that Alex Partridge was out with a knee injury, stab at catching the South Africans unaware, and would be replaced for more than two Dutch courage fails but Di Clemente and Cech let them wear them- weeks by Tom James, newly back in train- Pity the poor Dutch men’s four, selves out and then just pushed solidly back ing after finishing his Cambridge engineering the crew which has so far come through at Fawley for a third win inside four exams a couple of weeks earlier. The four was closest to spoiling the unbeaten years. With luck, all five openweight pairs will seen out doing a few cautious lunchbreak out- run of the Brits. Deprived of be in Lucerne, and back to full fitness. ings in the filthy cross-wind, and finally raced another attempt on their home THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE on Saturday, casually slaughtering the Austral- water when the Brits turned out ian heavyweight four. in the ‘super eight’ instead of the The other big event decimated by illness was four for the Amsterdam world the Princess Grace women’s quads. With a On the other side of the draw Trident, South cup, they were caught napping throat infection laying Debbie Flood low, the Africa’s feisty lightweights, disposed of an near the finish line by charging British world champions were out of Henley, Australian crew rather unkindly described as Kiwis. Two Dutchmen virtually and illness also kiboshed the Australians, who “pontoon pickups” by one pundit, and then knocked it on the head before have been a strong force in this category for came up against Canada’s heavyweights in the crossing the line, which should several years. They decided to switch Am- semi-final. give them a sore head. ber Bradley into their ‘B’ crew, originally a composite of their LW2x and W2x, and the re- Unseen by the race recorder, Trident’s stroke- sulting quartet chomped through two UK club man put his hand up just a couple of strokes af- Chinese checkers ter the start (see picture), apparently because he The devastating results of the composites before eating the Dutch women’s felt his crew had been pushed into the booms Chinese at the world cup in quad for breakfast on Sunday. by the Canadians. The race continued, the ap- Amsterdam (eight medals, five Meanwhile the GB women’s quad borrowed peal came to nothing, and Canada earned » of them gold) took me back to Holme Pierrepont in 1975, where Chinese characters first appeared on the wall. The flag contractors to the world championship or- ganisers in Nottingham inadvert- ently supplied a Taiwan ensign instead of a People’s Republic one, and there were angry scenes at the opening ceremony at County Hall in West Bridgford. Relations were restored after Martin Brandon-Bravo hastily arranged a dinner for the Com- munist ambassador and friends at Nottingham’s only Pekinese restaurant at that time. The Not- tingham & Union boatman was up all night trying to mix the correct shade of red for the oars which his club had kindly lent the Chinese crew. Trident (RSA) vs Brentwood & Shawnigan Lake (Canada) in the Stewards’ semi-final. Photo courtesy of and copyright to Martin Richardson What happened at Henley - Royal Regatta report continued page 3 » 16 July 2007 page 3 ROWINGVoice « the dubious privilege of being taken to pieces INTERNATIONALS ON COURSE Relief comes to by the British boys during the final. To add The remaining international events were insult to injury, Hodge steered the last 250m of Bullshit Point perhaps a little more predictable. In the ab- Spectators in the grandstand at the final slap bang in the centre of the course, sence of Neykova, American world medallist the world cup regatta in Amster- claiming innocently “I thought it was Boat Race Michelle Guerette had no trouble dealing with dam were amazed to see a porta- rules here”, ie choose your water if you get far GB lightweight Jen Goldsack in the Princess loo mounted on a fork lift truck enough ahead. Royal women’s singles. And though there was being driven along the opposite ürgen Grobler was satisfied with the GB a fantastic charge for the line by Canada in the bank where the lorry-mounted performance on Sunday, which suggested Queen Mother men’s quads, world champions grandstands usually roam.