Once again Monmouth Rowing Club have shown how they can successfully compete on the world stage with eight magnificent gold medals at the 2023 European Masters Rowing Championships. Held this year in Munich Germany on the 1972 Olympic rowing course, the championships ran over four days and attracted over 2,250 rowers from over 41 countries.
After our success last year at the World Masters, Monmouth RC sent a strong squad of 23 rowers to compete in 56 Women and Men's events, and a further 11 mixed events. The club won gold in an impressive eight events, with Mark W also winning the overall sculling trophy for his age category. Unlike the World Masters, there was no official club league table, but I'm sure we would have won that as well.
This years European Masters Championships attracted a very high caliber of rowers from across Europe, with many deciding to focus on this event, rather than the Worlds scheduled for
September in South Africa. We also saw an increase in the number and quality of combination crews entering, with many of them being regional squads or even international.
Against this stiff competition, MRC can be very proud of our results and our professional approach to racing and competing. For all the squad, this was a grueling four days of hard competition, with most people racing three times every day over the 1000m course. With so many events in close succession, it required detailed military planning and coordination by our coach Tim Male and the Women's captain Liz Lewis to make sure everyone arrived at the right race, at the right time and with the right boat and blades.
With over 60 races, we can't summarize every race but the gold medal winners were:
Mens F 2x - Mark W and Tim E
Mens E 2- Mark W and Nick H
Mens D 2X Mark W and Tim M
Mens D 4+ Mark W, Nick H, Tim M and James A. Cox Taryn B.
Mens D 2- Mark W and Tim M
Mens E 4- Mark W, Nick H, Tim M and James A
Mens F 1x Mark W
Mens F 4+ Tim E, Nick H, Colin L, Mark W and Liz L (cox)
Although the Women’s team didn’t win gold, they had many close races.
As always Team Monmouth was out in strength through the regatta and the warm up days with a great camp supplied with all the tea, coffee and cake one would ever want. This came in very useful on Saturday, when heavy rains and thunderstorms delayed rowing several times.
Whilst an event like this takes a full team to organize, special thanks must go to the towing team of James, Nick and Colin who towed a full boat trailer over 850 miles (each way). Colin was also Monmouth’s own Air B&B, organizing some fantastic accommodation for the team.
Next year's World Master Championships are back in Europe in Berlin in September 2024. It looks to be a great event and we hope to send another strong Monmouth squad with lots of new faces.
Comentários