World Rowing Tour (2019)

Sudbury Rowing Club members Keith Paxman and Maria Vigneau recently represented GB in The World Rowing Federation’s (FISA) World Rowing Tour.

Keith and Maria were selected to represent GB in the July 2019 World Rowing Tour, which was a 100 mile row over a four day period in Finland. Rowing through the region of North Karelia, the course leads through the heart of the North Karelian Lakeland.

Forty rowers were selected from 13 countries extending across Europe, North America, Australia and Africa.

Traditional Finnish Church Boats are used, which have sliding seats, sweep oars (one oar each) and are crewed by 14 rowers plus a cox.

Maria Vigneau said, “It was a unique opportunity to enjoy rowing with others from all over the world and share experiences. Many friendships were made as well as plans to visit other rowing clubs in the future. It was a true honour to have been selected to participate in a World Tour”.

The World Rowing Federation, FISA, is the governing body of the sport of rowing. It is empowered by its 155 member National Rowing Federations, the National Olympic Committees and the International Olympic Committee, to govern the sport of rowing.

Back in the UK, members of Sudbury Rowing Club competed at St Neots Regatta over the weekend of July 27th-28th.

It was an exceptionally wet, cold and windy July weekend with almost no let up in a seemingly unending torrent of rain. Nevertheless, the Sudbury rowers braved the inclement and chilly conditions.

The Juniors performed very well starting on Saturday, where the WJ18 double of Amelia Moule and Martha Bullen won easily against Peterborough and Sam McLoughlin won in his J17 single against Star club, by 1 foot.

Continuing into Sunday, the J15 double of Evie Prager and Emilie Larkin won against Peterborough by 2 lengths, the B2 open single of Morgan Moriarty won by 1 1/4 lengths against Northampton and the B1 Women’s quad of Amelia Moule; Martha Bullen; Natasha Treagust and Amelia Maskell won against Newark RC by 1 length.

Martha Bullen won by 3 feet against Peterborough in the WJ18 single and in the Women’s MasABC single, Kate Wallace also achieved an excellent win against Peterborough by 2 1/2 lengths.

A large number of very close second places were also achieved by Sudbury rowers in exciting and close races.

Congratulations to all competing rowers!