Rowers Cut Through The Blue

Though I dreaded the thought of starting my day as early as 4am, the opportunity of tagging along with members of the Dubai Rowing and Sculling Club who are gearing up for September’s FISA World Masters Rowing Championships in Zagreb seemed too good to pass over. And I was glad I didn’t as it proved to be well worth the hours of sleep sacrificed.

We wanted to put ourselves against the best in the world to see where we stand in our respective age categories. Coach Kevin Muller

Of course, I was not part of the training session – no regrets there – but a close witness to proceedings from the motorboat of coach Kevin Muller who had no objections to a journalist and a photographer travelling in the same boat with him.

“There is a lot of activity around the club at this time of the year,” Muller tells me as we coast along the Marina waters, ensuring his colleagues in the coxed four are within coaching distance.

“The focus is on the World Masters and it is the first time we are taking so many people,” adds the South African who has been involved in the sport for 20 years.

As many as 14 club members including Muller will feature at the September event across 11 races.

“It is a mixed group of men and women and it takes a lot of devotion to come and spend time here and then head off for their daily work routine. They are dedicated not just to their jobs but to the sport as well,” Muller says before advising a fellow team member: “You need to start using more of your legs, you are using too much of your upper body.”

The coxed four then begin another run as Muller continues: “We are in that sort of phase right now where we are getting them to use as high an aerobic capacity as they can manage. As we near the event, there will be two weeks of high intensity stuff and then it will probably drop a little so that we can get them to peak at the right time.”

As we ride back to shore, I ask Muller the reasons behind their ambition, to which he candidly replies: “We wanted to put ourselves against the best in the world to see where we stand in our respective age categories. It is a personal challenge for each one to get to the next level.”

The joyride has ended but my morning out with the rowers continues as 44-year-old Ian Atkinson lends his views on the Zagreb spectacle.

“I’d be surprised if we win any medals but we will only know once we get there,” says the man whose name is etched in the Guinness Book of World Records for being part of a 16-member sculling team that completed the 480-mile non-stop London to Paris route in record time in 2004.

But Frederick Douglas, the club chairman and a senior crew member himself, reveals the bigger dream.

“As an expat, when you leave this country, you usually leave nothing behind, but what we want to leave is a legacy of Olympic rowing out here,” says Douglas.

“We want to get it to a stage where we have UAE nationals competing at the Olympic level. And in the meantime, a few expats can have some fun as well.”

Row Lowdown

• In rowing, each oarsperson has only one oar which is used with both hands, while in sculling, each rower has two oars
• The FISA World Masters Rowing Championship in Zagreb will be held from September 6-9
• The regatta’s format makes it appealing to rowers of all levels. Overall crew ranking is not determined on the basis of heats, repechages, semi-finals or finals. If entries exceed the number of racing lanes in any of the 100 or more events, as many races necessary are added to the event, with a medal awarded to the winner of each race
• The event is open to competitors from 27 years upwards and with no upper age limit, it is not unusual to see rowers in their eighties

How it all began

• The Dubai Rowing and Sculling Club was founded in 2005 by four rowing enthusiasts: an Australian couple, Jeanette Bennett and Fred Douglas, a young Brit Tammy Bernard and Kenneth Kronborg, an adaptive rower from Denmark. It was through their love of rowing and their belief that there must be many other expatriate rowers in Dubai wanting to return to the sport they all love that the club began. A public meeting was held in February 2005 and out of that came the interim steering committee to form the Dubai Rowing and Sculling Club.
• For information on how you can join the Dubai Rowing and Sculling Club visit the club’s website www.dubairowingandscullingclub.com