2003 AXA PPP healthcare British IRC Report
One World, three British and 14 Championship records, a healthy dollop of controversy and a broken website. Well, the 2003 AXA PPP healthcare British IRC certainly wasn't without incident.
The controversy came in the biggest race of the day, the Men's Open Hwt. Featuring most of the best British on-water rowers around, including the likes of Matthew Pinsent, James Cracknell, Ed Coode and Kieran West, plus indoor rowing stars such as Graham Benton and Nik Fleming, the whole thing was set-up to be a classic.
Beforehand, Sir Steve Redgrave, who was on-hand to lend colour commentary, passed on rumours that Pinsent was apparently in awesome form. The last time he raced here, however, he just pipped Cracknell to the post by a single tenth of a second, and there was no doubt that James would be trying to gain satisfaction for that.
With the crowd on their feet and tension in the air, everybody went off like the proverbial on the gun. The tension, however, proved too much for some and Row B, connected to a separate race system than the front row, was called back for a false start. In the confusion, however, Cracknell stopped, apparently mistaking the call and thinking that it was his race that was affected. With less than ten seconds of the race gone and faced with a dilemma, the race organisers took the decision to stop the race.
After a five-minute delay, and with the tension building just that little bit more, the race got underway for a second time. This time it's a clean start, to the relief of just about everybody in the building. It's Pinsent and Benton who both get away well, hitting 1:15/16s for their early strokes.
In 2001, it was Cracknell who struck first and got the early lead, only to be remorselessly hunted down by Pinsent. Standing behind them both, Steve Redgrave notes that Cracknell obviously has a different game plan this time around, that it's him who'll sit back and try and break at the end.
At the 500 metre mark Pinsent held the lead just ahead of Cracknell; behind them Graham had Benton dropped back slightly, while Steve Williams and Matthew Wells looked comfortable in third and fourth. By the halfway stage, things had started to open up slightly; Pinsent and Cracknell had a boat length between themselves and the pack, with Pinsent consistently pulling slightly the stronger out of the two. Kieran West had stormed to through the ranks to threaten Williams for third.
Over the next 500 metres Kieran West continued to put pressure on Williams and he was joined by a surging Rick Egington. As things start to hot up in the last 500 metres, the pace told on Williams, who drifted while, out in front, Pinsent still led Cracknell. With 400 to go, Cracknell made his move and started to catch up. Unfortunately, he had to contend with Pinsent's famed finish and, as predicted by Redgrave, when it got to 300 metres to go, the three-times Olympic champion was able to hit 1:24s to finish the stronger out of the two, winning in 5:47.9.
Behind him, Cracknell was an easy silver medallist in 5:49.3, while Kieran West did well to take the bronze in 5:51.8, just ahead of Egington's 5:53 dead. Graham Benton finished a highly creditable seventh in 5:55.6, ahead of several rowers who'll be competing in the Athens Olympics.
Afterwards, in an interview broadcast on Grandstand, Cracknell appeared to claim that, having got off to a bad start, he took the opportunity to get the race restarted rather than play catch-up all the way. Whether you think that he's one of the greatest criminal masterminds since Moriarty or was just trying to grandstand on, erm, Grandstand, it certainly made for an interesting talking point.
In the other Open events, Debbie Flood and Tom Kay were both pushed all the way in the Women's Hwt and Men's Lwt race respectively. Debbie was neck and neck with Laura Gater until with 500 metres to go she revealed why she's one of British rowing's brightest prospects, pulling away to win in 6:43.1, Laura second in 6:47.4. Louise Engel was just able to hold off Natasha Smith by seven-tenths of a second to take bronze in 7:06.3.
Tom Kay has been a big name in Men's Lightweight rowing for a number of years now, and is the current World lightweight sculling silver medallist. He was, however, led virtually all the way by former triathlete James Stephenson. Rating higher than Kay, Stephenson was just ahead at the halfway stage. Kay is a famously good finisher, however, storming through the field when he took that silver in Milan. With 600 metres to go, Kay started to wind it up and, although Stephenson tried his best to hang on with 200 metres to go and Kay splitting at 1:33 he just wasn't quite able to do enough. Kay won in 6:13.6, Stephenson second in 6:14.6 and Tom Hanna third with 6:17.7.
The Women's Open Lwt race saw Jen Goldsack absolutely destroy the rest of the field. Hitting the front almost from the first stroke, she romped home in an impressive 7:09.3, almost 15 seconds ahead of Chantal Shaloub in second place. Shaloub's 7:24.2 included an excellent sprint at the end to snatch silver away from Leonie Barron.
In the age group races the performance of the day came from the United State's Rich Cureton. The only rower whom we spotted in a bobble hat, he was also the one to set a world record, rowing 6:28.0 in the Men's 50-54 Lwt race to break his own mark by 0.8 seconds. Behind him, Chris Bertram had an excellent race, not only taking silver but also setting a new British record of 6:37.7 in the process.
The two other British records broken on the day came at different ends of the age spectrum. In the Men's 70-79 Hwt event, Bill Payne came out top in a tight race that also starred World record holder Stephen Rounds and British record holder Alec French. Payne's time of 7:21.6 was enough to win the race by a couple of lengths and set a new British record.
In the Women's J18 Lightweight race, Laura Greenhalgh's time of 7:27.9 was not only enough to shatter the rest of the field, but it shaved over a second off Lizzie Tatman's old time. This year saw the first appearance of Junior 11 and Junior 12 races. "Only" racing over 1,000m, these proved to be a great success, and we reckon one of the performances of the day was by Laura D'Urso in winning the Women's Junior 12 race in 3:48.3. Other notable Junior performances came from Daniel Bream, Men's J14 champion in 6:39.0 and Michael Johnson in the Men's J16. Michael, who only took up indoor rowing recently, was involved in a great fight with Rob Francis to win in 6:28.0.
Many of the best performances of the day came in the older age categories. Former British Lion and indoor rowing legend Andy Ripley, rowing for the first time in the 55-59 age category, shattered the existing championship record with his time of 6:21.3. He flew out that night to see England versus France the next day in the Rugby World Cup, so he certainly had a good weekend. Roger Prowse broke the equivalent lightweight record in winning the 55-59 event in 6:45.7. Su Larcombe's longstanding 40-44 Hwt record was one of the more surprising ones to go. Tracey Axten rowed out of her skin to finish in 6:59.3, beating Sue's old mark by one-tenth of a second. Also in the Women's veteran categories, both Sarah Springman and Anna Bailey broke their own championship records for 45-49 Hwt and 50-54 Hwt in 7:10.1 and 7:07.8 respectively.
Overall, we reckon the day was a great success. We might only have got on Grandstand for a couple of minutes, and entry was slightly down on the year before, but overall things suggested indoor rowing is in a very healthy state. There were more juniors rowing this year than ever before and, looking at their results, a fair few of them are going to be more than useful rowers. Also, in an always looking on the bright side of life kinda way, the fact that the number of people going onto the Concept 2 website shortly after the Men's Open Hwt final crashed the server good and proper is, we're claiming, some kind of success.
