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Photograph: Werner Schmidt
Showing posts with label Paralympic Rowing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paralympic Rowing. Show all posts
In October 2012 on HTBS, French Paralympic Athlete Nathalie Benoit announced her new goal: ‘It’s not to row fast, but to row for a long time.’ Today, at 1 p.m., she will leave the port of Austerlitz in Paris for a 39-day trip to Marseilles, through Lyon (France’s three biggest cities).
At 33, Nathalie, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, wants to discover French inland waterways and share close relationships with people who will join her on the water in the 509 cities she will be passing.
Propelled only by Nathalie’s arms, the boat will run at an average pace of 5 km per hour, spanning more than 1,000 km and passing 174 locks. It means a total of about 300,000 oar strokes. One of the difficulties laying ahead is rowing against the stream of the river Seine, a distance of 90 km. It’s a unique performance never carried out before on the French inland waterways.
To fulfill her aim, Nathalie has been mentally preparing and training punctuated with chromotherapy and shiatsu sessions. Her challenge definitely demonstrates a huge amount of courage and perseverance.
HTBS’s Hélène Rémond has interviewed Nathalie Benoit, who took a silver medal at the London Paralympics. Hélène writes,
Nathalie Benoit was born in 1980 in Aix-en-Provence in South France and is a teacher at CNED (French National Distance Learning Centre) in Marseilles. She started rowing in 2008 at the Cercle de l’Aviron de Marseilles. Two months after she won her silver medal at the London Paralympics, she gives her impressions on the event and shares with HTBS readers what is her new goal. Nathalie has multiple sclerosis and is a para-rowing World Champion of the arms and shoulders single sculls category. Why did you choose to practice rowing?
I chose this sport for the beauty of the movement, the physical side and also because it’s an outdoor sport which involves gliding on the water.
What are the values associated to the sport, according to you?
It involves surpassing oneself, a taste for pushing oneself, perseverance, respect of the opponent, respect of the environment, solidarity - for long boats.
When did you decide to take part in the London event?
I started thinking about it after my world title in 2010, in Karapiro, New Zealand.
What qualities are needed to make a good performance?
Perseverance is the first quality. You need to train a lot, of course, but that will make the difference.
What led you to success in London?
For months, I had done the race in my head. It helped me to get the medal. On the final day, this was exactly as I had imagined it. The crowd’s enthusiasm and the presence of my family and close relations helped me a lot, too.
What about Eton Dorney?
Aeolus must love this lake. It’s very windy. That was the case the week previous to the competition. The day before the first race, the lake was closed in the afternoon because you could not row. The day after, the wind stopped blowing and we got good conditions during the three days of competition.
What do the silver medal and the reception at the Elysée Palace [the residence of the French president] evoke?
The medal is the outcome of a four-year training period. It’s a beautiful reward for the work that has been done. The reception is the recognition by the State. This year, Olympic and Paralympic champions were invited at the same time and this is a strong signal which might change the way people look on disability.
What are the four dates that have marked your rowing career?
They are my four podiums. I have felt very different emotions at every single event. In 2009, that was my first title as vice World champion (in Poznan, Poland), it was a discovery. Moreover, it was the first world medal for para-rowing. In 2010 (Karapiro, New Zealand), it was an intense emotion to hear the national anthem and see the French flag raised above the others. In 2011 (Bled, Slovenia), I felt the joy of being qualified for the London Games, but also the deception of being on the brink of beating the Ukrainian Alla Lysenko, who is unbeaten to this day [Lysenko finished about 10 seconds ahead of Nathalie with a time of 5:29.99, the fastest time in Paralympic Games]. Finally, in 2012, it was an indescribable joy together with a feeling of relief.
What is your next goal?
My next goal is not to row fast, but to row for a long time. I would like to row from Paris to Marseilles. For the time being, we evaluate the feasibility of this project.
Danny McBride was the only oarsman representing New Zealand at the Paralympic Rowing Regatta at Lake Dorney.
While we admire the athletes competing at the Paralympic Games in London (and where the Rowing ended on last Sunday), it is easy to forget that these sportsmen and -women might be in special need of repairs, maintenance and technical support for their equipment. In rowing, it might be the rower’s boat or his or her wheelchair that he/she uses to get to the boat. Here is where Ottobock Healthcare steps in. This company provides technical service to the 2012 Paralympic Games, the website SourceWire writes in a interesting article. The website states that Ottobock Healthcare so far, after five days of competing, has completed 1,761 repairs.
One of the Ottobock Healthcare team members, Emily Harrison, tells SourceWire:
“The majority of the equipment we have repaired comes from athletes who are spending lots of time by the water. Damp conditions at the rowing means we have to provide regular maintenance to prostheses and wheelchairs such as wheel bearings and puncture repairs. As Technical Service Provider to the Games, our role goes beyond wheelchair, prosthetic and orthotic repairs. For example, we built an interface for a double amputee to prevent friction burns whilst rowing.”
Technical service by the numbers:
Total repairs to date 1,761
Orthotic: Day five 15, total to date 101
Prosthetic: Day five 18, total to date 247
Wheelchair: Day five 194, total to date 1,413
Number of athletes serviced: Day five 162, total to date 1,282
Number of countries serviced: Total to date 121
Great Britain takes gold in the Mixed Coxed Four (LTAMix4+) at the 2012 Paralympic Rowing at Eton Dorney: Lily van den Broecke (cox) [hidden], Pamela Relph, Naomi Riches, David Smith and James Roe.
Here is a link to the Results in the 2012 Paralympic Rowing Regatta at Eton Dorney. Click here.
Tim Koch, HTBS’s special correspondent in London, writes about the Paralympic Rowing Regatta which starts tomorrow, Friday:
Rowing will make its second Paralympic Games appearance starting on Friday, 31 August at Eton Dorney. Forty-six men and forty-six women will race 1,000 metres in four events, three of which allow for different ‘functional ability’. All the finals will take place on Sunday, 2 September.
It is likely that London will be the first Paralympic Games to sell out. As of 28 August, 2.4 million tickets out of a possible 2.5 million tickets had been sold. I had earlier assumed that I would be able to pick up tickets to the rowing at any time but this was a big mistake, it looks as though I will have to watch it on television.
The first ‘paralell’ games were held in Rome following the 1960 Olympics. These were inspired by the ‘Stoke Mandeville Games’ for disabled British war veterans which started in 1948 and held to coincide with the London Olympics of that year. Though it took forty-eight years for rowing to be introduced into the Paralympic programme, starting at Beijing in 2008, the international governing body of rowing, FISA, introduced adaptive rowing to the world championships in 2002. ‘Adaptive’ means that the equipment is adapted to the user rather than the other way around.
The sport is now practiced in 24 countries and Concept 2 and other companies have responded accordingly. In Britain the first rowing club for those with a disability was affiliated to British Rowing in 1998 and there are now twenty-one clubs that offer, or are dedicated to, adaptive rowing. In the years leading to Beijing, UK Sport gave £1.3 million to the Paralympic Rowing Squad and increased this to £2.3 million for London 2012. Eleven rowers are receiving ‘Athlete Personal Awards’ designed to let them focus on their training.
USRowing has twenty-five adaptive rowing programmes currently running in the United States and in 2010 the Head of the Charles in Boston included an adaptive event for the first time.
The four events at Dorney are men’s and women’s single sculls, mixed sex doubles and mixed sex coxed fours.
The single sculls are ‘AS’ class i.e. the rower’s impairment means that they can only use their arms and shoulders to move the scull. Stabilising floats must be attached to the riggers.
Mixed double sculls are ‘TA’ which means the trunk, arms and shoulders can be used.
In the ‘LTA’ mixed coxed four the rowers may use legs, trunk and arms as is usual but they qualify by having an impairment which affects their ability to row. According to the British Paralympic Association website:
All impairment groups except athletes with learning difficulties are eligible (but the latter) look set to compete in Rio after an (International Paralympic Committee) vote in 2009 reinstated athletes with learning difficulties in four sports including rowing.
The cox is not required to be disabled and no more than two of the rowers may have a visual impairment. In the much fancied British four, James Roe and Naomi Riches are partially sighted, Pamela Relph has arthritis and David Smith has a fused ankle.
I do not know what the view of the Paralympics is outside of Britain but the excitement and anticipation here is palpable. In a very short space of time I, like many others, have changed the way that I view disabled people and sport. The Paralympians themselves have brought about this advance by their obvious total commitment to their training and to their ultimate goal. Many people no longer view them as ‘disabled athletes’, but see them simply as ‘athletes’.
Paralympic racing starts on Friday 31 August, at 9:30 a.m. at Eton Dorney, outside of London. Finals will be raced on Sunday 2 September. A total of 23 countries will be represented by 108 Paralympic rowers competing in one of the four Paralympic boat classes. FISA writes in a press release:
The four Paralympic boat classes are the AS women’s single sculls (ASW1x), the AS men’s single sculls (ASM1x), the TA mixed double sculls (TAMix2x) and the LTA mixed coxed four (LTAMix4+). There will be 12 crews racing in each of these four events, representing a total of 48 boats.
Brazil and Ukraine have qualified crews in each of the four Paralympic boat classes, with six nations having qualified three crews each.
Qualification began in 2011 at the World Rowing Championships, where the top eight finishers in each boat class qualified a spot for their country at rowing’s second ever Paralympic Games. At the Final Paralympic Qualification Regatta this year in May, a further two Paralympic spots were attributed to the top two crews in each event. The final two entries in each event are invitational and have been allocated by the Bipartite Commission composed of representatives of FISA and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
FISA’s “adaptive” rowing, has been part of the World Rowing Championship programme since 2002 and, in 2005, the IPC announced the inclusion of rowing into the Paralympic Games. At the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing, rowing’s first Paralympic Rowing Regatta was staged. FISA has “adapted” the boats so that the adaptive rowers can compete in the same sport with the same field of play and rules.
2008 Paralympic Champion in the AS men’s single sculls, Tom Aggar of Great Britain, a former rugby player, will be aiming to win gold once again in front of a home crowd. He has not lost a single World Championship since appearing on the international rowing scene in 2007.
In the AS women’s single sculls, only a few 2008 Paralympians will be lining up once again in London. Beijing silver medallist from Belarus, Liudmila Vauchok, will aim for the podium once again. Vauchok is also a multi Winter Paralympic Champion. Strong contenders will be 2009 and 2011 World Champion from Ukraine, Alla Lysenko, as well as 2010 World Champion and 2009 and 2011 world silver medallist Nathalie Benoît from France.
In the TA mixed double sculls, China was the Paralympic Champions in 2008. In London, the Chinese athletes racing this year will be different from those who won gold in Beijing. Xiaoxian Lou and Tianming Fei have only competed once internationally before these Paralympic Games, when they became World Champions last year in Bled, Slovenia. They will be facing Australia (whose Kathryn Ross rowed to silver in Beijing) and Brazil (whose Josiane Lima won bronze in 2008).
The reigning World Champions in the LTA mixed coxed four are Great Britain, having won gold in 2009 and 2011 and silver in 2010. Their London line-up is different to the one that won bronze in Beijing with only Naomi Riches continuing in the boat. Their toughest competition is expected to come from Canada who were World Champions in 2010.
To view the entries and provisional timetable, please click here.
‘Hear the Boat Sing’ (HTBS) was founded in 2009 by Göran R Buckhorn, a Swede living in Connecticut, a magazine editor, culture scribe and a rowing historian. In 1990, Göran co-founded the Swedish rowing magazine, “Svensk Rodd”, for which he is now a contributing editor. He has written numerous articles on rowing, and is one of the Directors of Friends of Rowing History and a member of BARJ, the British Association of Rowing Journalists. Regular contributors to HTBS are: rowing historians Tim Koch and Greg Denieffe, both in England; Hélène Rémond, France; and Philip Kuepper, Connecticut. Besides writing articles on The Boat Race, the Henley Royal Regatta, the Wingfield Sculls, and the Doggett’s Coat and Badge Race, Tim has made some rowing documentaries. He is also a Director of the Friends of Rowing History and a member of BARJ. Greg is an Irishman who specializes on Irish rowing. Some of his finest pieces are on HTBS. Hélène, who wrote her thesis on British rowing, has covered The Boat Race and the Henley Regatta for French papers and HTBS, also shooting beautiful photos for this blog. Philip’s poems on rowing have topics about everything between the daily life and the divine.
At 33, Nathalie, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, wants to discover French inland waterways and share close relationships with people who will join her on the water in the 509 cities she will be passing.
