2000 Report
2000 World IRC report
As the late winter snow slowly melted around the Reggie Lewis Track and Field Centre in Boston, USA, nearly 1800 of the world's finest indoor rowers gathered for the 2000 World Indoor Rowing Championship on February the 20th. Fears that the line-up would be weakened by the upcoming Sydney Olympics proved unfounded, with the Americans, especially, providing an incredibly strong squad. The team that left this shores was packed to the rafters with talent and, although there were some nerves on display to start with, everybody acquitted themselves admirably.
In the Women's lightweight events, the British entrants appeared to have the black spot over their rivals, as Christina Nugent (left) and Helen Mangan won the 30-39 Lwt and the 40-49 Lwt titles respectively. While Helen was the world record holder and the woman to beat in the final, Christina pulled a cracking performance out the bag. Tracey Langlands, the fastest female British Lightweight ever, did well to qualify for the Women's Open final, finishing eighth overall, just a few seconds outside a medal position. That race was won by Lisa Schlenker of the USA, who, in beating her own world record, raised the standard of the fastest lightweight women ever to 6:56.7. At the other end of the women's scale, although no less impressive, Paddy Rouse picked up a medal for the 70-79 Hwt, romping home in 9:17.5, a full quarter of a minute ahead of the opposition. In the 70-79 Women's Lwt meanwhile, Mavis Surridge picked up a silver, with a row of 9:46.6. One of the less expected, and therefore more exciting, results of the day was Jane Fisher in the 30-39 Hwt event. Jane took part in a fierce tussle with Pamela Cyr of the United States for second spot on the podium, pulling away from her by two seconds in the end.
What's the connection between Noel Frost and Shirley Bassey? Apart from both singing a mean version of "Diamonds Are Forever", they can both be relied on to perform well in the later stages of their career. Despite suffering from a bad back, Noel continued his domination of the 60-69 Hwt race, an event he won last year. He had to fight a little harder than usual this year, however, with the American Walker Collins leading for most of the race. With 200 metres to go Noel kicked in with his trademark powerful finish to take the title in 6:42.1. Another reliable old-timer is Herbert Leah in the 70-79 Lwt. Herbert had a somewhat easier race in his event, taking the gold over 15 seconds ahead of second place with 7:25.3. His great friend and rival Harry Welsh picked up the bronze.
Other notable men's performances include George Meredith's silver in the 50-59 Lwt event, again just thwarted by his arch-nemesis Jean-Paul Tardieu as he was at the Brits, and Phillip Stubley's second in the 60-69 Lwt. Special mention must go to Bert South and John Hodgson. The two oldest members of the British team at 82 and 89, they took the silver and bronze respectively in the 80-89 Lwt, proof that you're never to old to rock and roll. While we're on the older side of things, bronze medallists Keith Atkinson and Kevin McKeown picked up their gongs for the 60-69 Lwt and the 70-79 Hwt events.
The fastest British time of the day came from Colin Greenaway. Surrey man Colin did his national squad selection hopes no harm with a stunning 5:57.0 row to secure victory in the Men's Masters (30-39) category. It was his first world championship victory and he defeated a field of 60 to secure gold.
The blue ribbon events of any championship, the four opens, can always be relied upon to provide some excitement, and this year was no exception. The two undoubted performances of the day came from the Americans Amy Fuller and Lisa Schlenker, competing in the Hwt and Lwt event respectively. Both tore up the rulebook to become the fastest women in the world ever over for their weight category. A scant couple of weeks after Cath Bishop brought the world record to Britain, Amy Fuller (right) sliced a few hundreds of a second off that time in winning the Women's Open in 6:32.3, over 5 seconds ahead of Georgina Evers-Swindell of New Zealand in second place. Possibly even more impressive in relative terms was Schlenker in winning the Lwt Open. The only lightweight woman ever to go under seven minutes, Schlenker tore the rest of the field apart; always going sub-world record pace, she powered home in 6:56.7, way ahead of the rest of the pack. The next most notable lightweight women's performance was Johanne Thomsen of Denmark, who wrapped up the J18 Lwt in 7:08.7. Johanne, who holds the world record for that distance with 7:07.0, looks to be a good bet for the next great lightweight women's champion.
In contrast to Schlenker's domination of the Women's Open Lwt, the Men's Open Lwt provided possibly the most exciting race of the day. With the final pretty much composed of the American Olympic Lightweight squad, it was neck and neck all the way. With the top seven all finishing under 6:17, you can imagine both the quality and the closeness of the race. In the end it came to a shoot out between three Princeton boys, Nick Tripician, Gabe Winkler and Tom Auth, with Tripician scraping home to win in 6:11.2, Winkler second in 6:12.3, just ahead of Auth with 6:12.6 who, as a 31 year-old set a new world record for the 30-39 age category. Britain's only entry in the event, Alistair Meredith, performed admirably, finishing 130th out of 181 in a time of 6:56.9.
The Men's Open event was, as expected, all about the New Zealand superman Rob Waddell (right). Rob coolly cruised through the heats, taking final automatic qualifying place in 5:52.8. In the final itself although, he poured on the class, rapidly accelerating away from the field, cruising home (if cruising's the right word for a 6'7" giant, pulling as hard as he can at forty strokes a minute) in 5:40.2, ahead of Cyrus Beasley of the US in 5:46.5. Greece's finest, Kariotis Konstantinos picked up the bronze in 5:46.7. The name to look for in the future, however, is that of the American Dave Simon. Rowing in the Collegiate Open event, Dave whipped off a mighty powerful 5:41.0, joining the select group of men like Rob Waddell and Matthias Siejkowski able to pull such scores.
That night the European team partied the night away until the clock found 2:30 in the morning, with the British contingent in particular seeming determined to exact revenge for the Boston Tea Party. As Jean-Paul Tardieu's enthusiastic air guitar led the crowd on one more trip around the dance floor, and tired limbs found the energy to strut their stuff one more time, the last thing people were heard to utter as they slunk back off to the Back Bay Hilton was "Next year, next year, I bet it's even better."
