Poznan

Poznan is a city about two hours drive south of Bydgoszcz. I was there two and a half weeks ago (the weekend of October 17-18) racing in a pair. Over the course of two days, I raced four times over the 2k distance: a heat Saturday morning followed by a final in the afternoon. Both Sunday races were finals. The format of the regatta was three heats of six with the first place finisher from each advancing directly to the final. Besides that, five additional boats would be selected by best time overall from all of the heats and then placed into an eight boat final, held later that same day. Following that final, the top six finishers stayed in the “A” final as the last two boats were dropped into the “B” final and the top two finishers from the “B” final were added to the “A”, thus maintaining the eight boat final format.

I was racing in a pair, which is a two person boat propelled by long oars, one held by each rower (as opposed to a double in which each rower has two oars). I was stroking and since there is no coxswain I steered with my foot (a cable connects a moveable shoe to the rudder, thus allowing me to steer with side to side movements of my right foot). We finished third in our heat and had the third best time overall from all of the heats, thus advancing my partner and I to the “A” final. We then finished 4th in the first final and 5th in both the second and third final. However, the great thing is that our club entered four pairs and all four pairs stayed in all three “A” finals.

But my favorite part about racing in Poznan was the racecourse. In Poland, Poznan is called the city of rowing, and it is because the race course is more or less in the center of the city and it is a world class course, which is not meant as a compliment but a distinction: it is certified by the international governing body of rowing (FISA) to host international regattas. And it really is so. When I first got to the course, I was intimidated. Staring at you from the dock is a large and somewhat ominous finish line tower standing at the end of bleachers several stories tall that run for the last 300 meters of the course. The lanes are well marked as are all of the 500 and 250 meter intervals. But my two favorite parts of the course are firstly the “pac-man’s” behind the start line and secondly the finish line. The pac-man’s are these large yellow circles with a triangle cut out (resembling pac-man) with their mouths facing up towards the sky. Behind each of them is a large yellow triangle that fits into each pac-man’s mouth. The purpose of this is that when you are rowing a blind boat (meaning a boat without a coxswain) the person steering needs only to line up the mouth and the triangle to be on course for a straight line down the 2k distance. This made steering for me a lot easier. As for the finish line, it was a literal line of bubbles across the span of the eight lane course, something found only on world class courses.

The other thing that made racing at Poznan special was that less than two months ago, the 2009 World Rowing Championships were held there and I could still feel all of the energy from that regatta. Even the flags from all of the countries from around the world were still flying on the flagpoles.