Athlete take on FISU

7 tot 9 september vond het FISU WK plaats in Kazan, Rusland. Als voltallige Skadi-ploeg mochten wij de eer van Nederland verdedigen in het dames vierzonder-veld tegen allerlei internationale ploegen. Erg spannend uiteraard, aangezien we geen idee hadden hoe de andere ploegen het zouden doen en omdat we überhaupt nog nooit in Rusland zijn geweest! 

Vrijdag brak de dag aan van de voorwedstrijd. Na de voorbespreking van donderdagavond stapten we zelfverzekerd, maar toch ook een beetje nieuwsgierig de boot in. We wonnen de voorwedstrijd met gemak, dit betekende een kans op een podiumplek! 

En toen kwam zondag, de finaledag. We wisten dat de Russen erg sterk waren en dat de andere ploegen het ook niet zomaar weg zouden geven. Met gezonde spanning en focus voeren we naar de start en op het moment dat het stoplicht op groen sprong, ging iedereen los! De Russen gingen hard, maar wij en Polen lagen nog bij ze.. Tijdens de eindsprint hebben we de boot nog voor die van onze Poolse tegenstanders kunnen leggen, we kwamen als tweede over de finish. Zilver!! 2e op het FISU WK! Wij, onze coaches en iedereen die ons heeft gesteund, waren erg trots en blij met dit mooie resultaat, iets waar we nog steeds volop van genieten.

Avalon Valstar

Proteus Kick Off Tests

Proteus athletes were tested also at LAGA but when went to their home base to do the water rowing skills. Here Vincent pushed the most watts and the Proteus guys overall had the highest watt scores. Here are some photos of their testing:

Warming up

Highest max watts from Vincent.

Even past students wanted in on the action. In jeans and all!

 

Maybe this helps to get a max score- Stretch your feet!?

Guys were told about what the score means and how this works with the lactate curve that John can test them on later in the year if all progresses well with athletes and with the RTC.

Flexibility test.

Back at Proteus, this was the biggest jar of Nutella I have ever seen!

LAGA kick off Profile Test

Here are the pictures from the testing at LAGA. Marja holds the record for the max watts with 590 watts, and the most flexibility was Liza.

Warming up.

Mirte doing her flexibility test.

Holding down te erg for the max watt tests!

Liza - the most flexible rower!

Laga athletes listening to the goals of the RTC. They are the 3 P's - Promoting rowing for the south Holland region, Progress of the athletes through the year, and Performance shown in racing.

Nows the guys hear about the goals of the RTC and what the test results when. John explains that there can be future lactate testing to show improvement.

Pushing for more centimeters in the flexibility.

Rowing at from the docks of Laga.

RTC Kick off at Skadi with a prospective talents profile test

Today the RTC kicked of the 2012-2013 season with a talent profile test at Skadi. Athletes wanting to be included in to the RTC as either majors or minors were tested in 3 basic ways: 

1. Max watt test

2. flexibility test

3. On the water technical skills. 

"This is an introduction to the season, to see where the athletes are", says coach Ans. "Athletes will have other chances to show their talent as the season continues." Coach John Parker told the athletes the goals for the RTC are to promote rowing in the South Holland region, to get the athletes to continue to progress through the season and their will be a focus on performance through good racing results. 

Tomorrow LAGA athletes and Proteus athletes will be tested in the same way!

Harmen helping setting up as his last days left as the Skadi commissar. Thank you Harmen for all your service to rowing and the RTC!

John letting rowers know what to expect.

Ans telling rowers about the new season events to look forward to.

The flexibility test. Athletes were encouraged to keep working on their flexibility spending some time stretching after each training session.

Max watt test.

Athletes understanding what the test results mean.

On the docks at Skadi.

Completing the profile test was a on water rowing skills observation. Coaches biked alongside the rowers seeing what their skill levels were

The Rotte where Skadi athletes row. It was a beautiful day.

LET THE NEW SEASON BEGIN...

RTC KICK OFF - 2013 SEASON BEGINS!

U23's World Championships in Trakai, Lithuania

This is the morning of the final for our RTC crews who qualified right through to the international stage. To come to this point took hours of training on the water, in the gym, on the erg. Coaches Ans and John started working with these crews in early part of the winter in 2011, and now the season will end with this result.

In the lightmen double scull we have Bastiaan and Daan who didn't make the A/B final through their rep yesterday. I know there was disappointment in the result, but they have there C final and there is always a chance to learn for the next big race.

In the lightmen quad, Conno, Bart, Tim and Allard race their final. They are up against the Germans again, who they fought in the Brandenburg Regatta. It will be a big lung burner for athletes and coaches, who are going to the last line pushing to really show what they are made of.

We still have the RTC crews, Yvonne and Marja in the women's eight, who will race tomorrow. The raced for lanes and placed 4th with a time of 6:36.37.  Winning time was posted by the USA as 6:28.46


And Annick Taselaar from De Maas also features in the Lightweight women single scull. She raced her rep and placed second which was just what she needed to get in the Semi-Final.

Thanks to Peter Kolsters and John Parker for the photos.

Henley Regatta

Janneke is racing in the Hollandia crew W4x in the Princess Grace Challenge Cup.

And Marja and Yvonne is racing the Hollandia 8+, in the Remenham Challenge Cup

http://www.hrr.co.uk/results/live/stream/

NSRF Final Matches

The closing season has a few exciting competitions left. Today we have the NSRF Closing Races organized by Proteus.
Our RTC athlete, Mirta is getting ready to race at 3:45pm.


Her competition includes Njord Maria-Anne Frenken who competed in the 2011 World Championships in Bled.


Winning this race will give Mirte the chance to go as the LW1x to the World Championships in Bulgaria in August. One race! Its pretty exciting.


http://www.nsrf.nl/slotwedstrijden 

za  15:45   [022]   LDSA 1x   A-finale
[2] TRI Triton
[3] BRE Breda
[4] LAG Laga
[5] NJO Njord
[6] OKE Okeanos
[7] THE Thêta

Final Advancements of our RTC athletes

Yesterday the KNRB decided on the following races based on the results of the Holland Beker and performances from our RTC athletes.

We are very pleased with the results and to see most of our RTC talents being selected to advance to top levels and compete at top races.

Selected:
Non-Olympic World Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria 14-19 August
LM8+ - Ryan den Drijver (cox)

U23 World Championships in Trakai, Lithuania 11-15 July
BW8+ - Yvonne Jansen
            - Marja Haagsma

BLW1x - Annick Taselaar

BLM2x - Bastiaan Vervoort
              - Daan Weide

BLM4x - Conno Kuyt
             - Bart Lukkes
             - Allard van den Hoven
             - Tim Weerkamp (not RTC athlete but still training with us)

FISU World Championships in Kazan 7-9 September
M2x - Thijs van Luijk
        - Maarten Blokland

W4- - Marleen Mol
        - Sarah van der Linden
        - Mariette Nijhoff
        -Avalon Valstar

More selections and trials for these athletes:
Mirte will race in the NSRF against the LW girls from the quad. The winner goes to the World Champs in Plovdiv as the LW1x.

Janneke will race at Henley in the quad.

Hugo, Sjoerd, Daan and Ruppert will still be considered for FISU.

Press Release: RTC at Rotterdam TopSport Kick-Off

Today, 10:30 a kick-off function was held to show the importance of development of sport talents in the region. The kick-off was held at the gym courts of the Thorbecke School in Rotterdam. Rowing was one of the sports represented and some of our RTC athletes were there.

First there were talks expressing the excitement to build and develop talents to the top levels,

RTC Coach John Parker was asked if he welcomes the rivalry between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. John said yes, he is excited about such things because it brings the level up for all regions.

On the courts there was a showing of basketball, handball, volleyball and baseball,

RTC Coach Ans Rom Colthoff was asked to tell some of the stories behind the rowers who were at the kick-off. 

Some other talents from our rowers?!

Sunday Stories from the Holland Beker

Sunday was much better weather. In fact a little sun graced us, and the wind stayed down. Racing continued on Day 2.

> It started with Mirte winning the Lightweight single (again). She won it on both days! This is such a great result for Mirte because in February of this year, she suffered the lose of her grandfather. On top of that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time as cooking oil fell on her arm, giving her serious 3rd-degree burns. She still has to race with a protective black cover over her arm and the burn marks on her body left some big scares. She was unable to attend the Seville training camp because she was at her grandfather's funeral. But nothing stopped her from doing what she could and all to her best ability.
Later this year Laurien Vermulst joined Wouter coaching her. Mirte raced Laurien's LW1x, called Kia Ka. This boat was named by Phillpa-Baker, a NZ Lightweight Single Sculler that raced against Laurien. With this adjustment of a boat that fits and Mirte's big heart, she pushed to a double victory under Wouter's guidance. What a great year!

>The quad with Janneke had a double edge story. On Saturday they won the final from start to finish. But Sunday saw a completely different complexion. A rower's worst nightmare, as one crew member caught a crab and brought the boat to a complete stop. The girls tried what they could to recover but finished last in the Sunday final.

>The lightweight men's quad had only one race on Sunday to look forward to. The were required to weigh-in, even though they raced in the openweight to prove a valid result to the KNRB. They lead the start but ended in a head to head battle in the last 500m with the heavyweight crew from Great Britain. It came down to 200th of a second that GB took over our LM4x. That is just the length of a longer boat for heavier weights! I saw Bart lying in the boat bay on a boat bag completely exhausted from a hard effort. But their prognostics were still good enough and the guys prepare to race in Munich at the 3rd World Cup this weekend. You can follow on WorldRowing.com.

>The Skadi four as the girls are becoming known as are the best race to watch. In both Saturday and Sunday they marched through Nereus in an unbelievable domination to win in the last 10 meters. Every race Nereus wanted to get more ahead of the Skadi four. This a true showing of never giving up.

>The lightweight men's double with Bastiaan and Daan also had mixed results. A great race on Saturday were they chased down the British and placed second to the Olympic Portuguese Lightweight Men. In Sunday's race the boys wanted more, and started out faster but unable to maintain the rhythm they placed second to the British double that they beat they day before. They were in lanes one and six meaning unable to have contact to use each other to push against.

>Maarten and Thijs raced in the Open Men's double and had a great race. It was really close with their rival dutch boat and beat them in the sprint at the end. Joris who coached them was pleased with their times of 6:22 and 6:23. Not much to say about these boys. They are simple and get the job done.

>The Men's Sweep event (M4-) had mixed results. On Saturday they raced hard to finish 3rd behind 2 KNRB boats. On Sunday, they had not quite the same race but still a solid performance to finish third again. Jara captured some great photos of the guys and the Laga crews in general. If you have facebook, check out her photos > Nice to see the smiles!

>Mara and Yvonne raced in the W8 close to a Canadian Senior A boat in both days. Always nice to see all the bodies working hard together in the eights as the premium rowing event.

The RTC region had great results at the Holland Beker. Coaches Ans and John were pleased with the results, and happy of the level of rowing that has been lifted by the clubs of De Maas, Skadi, Laga and Proteus working together.

Skadi Four

Marleen Mol (stroke), Sarah van der Linden, Avalon Valstar and Mariette Nijhof (bow) won this Weekend at @Hollandbeker on both Saturday and Sunday in the W4-. Last weekend (ARB regatta) they also won both days. They became national champion W4- earlier this year at the NK, and won another race in the four (Varsity), in the pair (ZRB regatta) and in the eight (Heineken Regatta)! Not bad, don't you say?!