Whilst we never came back with any trophies (unless you count the photographs of Chicken posing with them!), SARC did themselves proud at the European Fixed Seat Rowing Championships held at Lake Maggiore in Italy.
Friday training started in some confusion with our crews initially using the wrong type of boat (there were two types of boats being used for the event). It was only when we were identified as a Welsh crew instead of an English crew that we were put into the correct sort. For those of you perhaps wondering why we are a Welsh crew, it is because we are affiliated to the Welsh Sea Rowing Association.
It was good to see all of the SARC prime athletes taking the event seriously as no more than 4 pints each were consumed on the Thursday evening. Of course there are always exceptions to any rule and the fittest people were able to take this pre-event training session to the extreme and continue consuming alcohol into the small hours of the morning. No after effects were felt by any of our athletes unless you count Nick Furnival suffering from the chicken sandwich he had the previous day (not the numerous mixture of drinks he had!) which kept him in bed for most of the day. Fortunately the arrival of Helen (Mrs Furnival) helped speed up his recovery for when she arrived.
Racing consisted of several heats over a 1km course. This proved hard for us as we take 5km to warm up normally so this was more of a sprint than we were used to and in strange boats. Two of our crews made it through to the final itself which was over a 3km course and we managed a credible 4th and 5th positions in the final.
Well done to all participants and especially to Geoff who organised the event. Our thanks must go to our Italian hosts who were great at ferrying us all around and putting on a really good event.