Kiaora All,

Welcome once again to one Auckland club members perspective of the 2006 Rowing NZ international tour. The team is going to be in Europe for three months. First up is World Cup regatta in Poland, followed by the last world  Cup in Lucerne, Switzerland three weeks later, we then head to the Czech  Republic for some solid training time, next is Belgium for the last section of heavy mileage before the short flight to the UK where at the End of August the World Rowing Champs will be held at the new Eton course. Hopefully some Arcnons will be there to help celebrate another successful champs (fingers crossed).

We arrived in Poznan, Poland, after a good 30 hours travelling, last Sunday, our bags followed soon after turning up the next morning. One of the disadvantages of trying to pack for a three month tour is that all the gear tends not to fit on the smaller planes in Europe. It didn't really put us out to much, though some of the boys were starting to smell a little 'fresh'.

We spent most of the first couple of days out and about to make sure the body adapted to getting sun at what it thinks is three in the morning. There was a lot of sorting out equipment when John and Dick arrived with the boat trailer. They left a couple of days before us to allow enough time to drive across Europe after picking up all the boats from our base in Belgium. Also we have't seen these boats since they got shipped in the container nearly 3 months ago, it takes a little bit of setting up to make sure they feel something like the skiffs we'd been training in back in NZ, I think we've got ours somewhere close now.

From Monday to Thursday, it has been getting back into a routine for training. Building up to a regatta the km's drop down a bit and everyone tries to find their legs again after the long flight. For the most part
everyone seems to have adjusted well, it helps that the weather has been pleasent and our hotel and food are pretty decent. The womens eight had a couple of coughs from the flight but come regatta day (thats today) everyone is back on deck and ready to go.

The course is pretty impressive, it was built back in 1990 and some of the eighties design elements are still evident. For the first couple of days there were light tail winds on the course, mainly in the morning, with
things getting a bit swirly in the afternoon. However the wind has swung the other way now and is pretty much head winds all day. There are a few spots down the course where it goes side wind but if anything those sort of conditions will suit us I think.

We are going to have a pretty tough competition here. Drew Ginn from the Australian gold medal Athens pair is back with a new partner and there is a new combination from Serbia who beat South Africa in the last World Cup and won the event. There is always an added element of nerves at the first race of the season, even though all our training has gone pretty well this year, you never really know where you are at until you get this first regatta underway. Which ever way the results go this weekend, it will allow us to get more focused for Worlds by letting us know where we stand and what we need to do to ensure we up on the dias come August.

Well thats about it, don't want to much of a novel. Hope the storms have started to pass back in NZ. For those that don't receive the updates from Rowing NZ the details of NZ races tonight (NZ time) are...

·      8.54pm: Mahe Drysdale in the men's single
·      9.24pm: Nicky Coles and Juliette Haigh in the women's pair
·      9.30pm: George Bridgewater and Nathan Twaddle in the men's pair
·      10.00pm: Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell in the women's double.
·      10.42: The men's four
·      12.12pm: women's eight.

Cheers All

PS Please forward to anyone you feel might be interested and email me addresses so I can include next time.