Wielka Wioslarska o Puchar Brdy

Three weeks ago (the weekend immediately following the Rund um Wannsee Regatta in Berlin) I competed in the Great Row for the Brda Cup, as it would be called in English. It was a head race held here in Bydgoszcz on the Brda River. I stroked the Bydgostia club entry, which was comprised of myself and the younger group of oarsmen at the club, those that are now too old to qualify as juniors (basically 19 or older). The other guys at the clubs, that is those with whom I have been racing were rowing in different boats in the regatta. Unlike in the U.S. where each individual university has a team and they all compete against each other, here in Poland, each town has one or two (or here, three) different clubs where athletes train and compete, regardless of what university they go to (assuming they are of age to attend and inclined to attend university). Normally, boat lineups are made up of members of the club, regardless of what school or university they attend. But for this occasion, since it is a great publicity booster for the city of Bydgoszcz, all of the universities want their athletes to row in university line-ups. Since I am not part of any university, I was with the club eight. We finished fifth overall.

My favorite memory from the regatta, however, was performed by my coxswain: Janek Erdman. Three times during the race, while our boat was in full swing at 32 strokes a minute, our coxswain detected some water plants caught on our rudder, slowing us down and affecting his steering. Three times, he stood up, turned around, laid himself down on the stern deck and freed the boat of the weeds. It’s a pretty crazy feeling to be rowing at full speed with your coxswain laying on the stern deck with the good possibility of falling in, all of which is happening on a very windy river.

Other than that, the weekend was very enjoyable. Besides our home Bydgoszcz entries, there were crews from Germany, Moldavia, Lithuania and England. Actually, there were three boats representing England, one from Cambridge University, one from Oxford University and one from Nottingham University. That is definitely one of the nice things about racing in Europe; the countries are a lot closer so there are more opportunities for international racing.

And to cap it all off, following the regatta, I made it back in time to see the news with sports highlights of my eight starting the race, complete with line-up and my name at the top of the tv. I’ve been in Poland for six weeks and already made the news!