> 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.
