Walking into the Caversham boathouse in June this year for the first time was one of the more scary experiences I have had in recent years. All these names I had read in Rowing and Regatta and yelled at on the telly wandered around, towering above me, and even saying good morning on the stairs! Fortunately for me, they weren't as scary as they looked. Everyone was very welcoming and I could swallow some of my nerves before trials began.
In the past 3 months I have gone from considering the World Championships as a far way event that inconveniently clashed with the mighty Gloucester-Bristol-Ross weekend, (I began rowing at Ross Rowing Club when I was 10, my Dad and brother still row there) which would be watched in glimpses over aged veterans' heads in the bar as I pulled pints on regatta day, to an event which consumed all time, effort and thought for the entire summer.
As a cox, I spent hours planning, organising and dreaming up contingency strategies for imaginary situations, and juggled training on the water with my own training and nutritional programme to take me from the men's coxing weight I had been at Reading University, to the women's/mixed weight I was to be on race day. Our nutritionist is an angel. I listened to recordings of races, both of others and myself. The time slipped away so quickly as we drew nearer and nearer to the ultimate event of the season.
I cox the LTA 4+, which is the Adaptive (Paralympic) coxed four - LTA stands for legs, trunk and arms. You could be excused for thinking that this couldn't include a disability, but this category (there are 3 categories in adaptive rowing, the Arms only 1x, the Trunk and Arms (TA) double and the LTA 4+) allows those with visual impairments and milder physical impairments to row. Both the double and the four are mixed crews, whilst there are separate men's and women's single scull categories (Helene Raynsford and Tom Aggar). Adaptive implies that the equipment is "adapted" to the user to practise the sport, rather than the sport being "adapted" to the user. FISA introduced Adaptive rowing on a World Championship level at the 2002 World Championships in Seville, when only 38 athletes competed. This has grown to new heights this year at Poznan, with 55 athletes competing in the LTA 4+ category alone.
20th August. Arrive in Poznan, Poland. First impressions - the country is incredibly flat, their driving is terrifying and the city went from nasty to beautiful within one street. Lake Malta was hot and windy, and the hotel impeccably organised as usual. Time raced past over the first 4 or 5 days until the heats. Winning our heat, over the Germans and Canadians, put us straight through to the final, with a 5 day gap... Our challenge was to keep the same level of focus without going off the boil in that time. Cabin fever properly set in on about day 8, as everyone bounced off the walls - I thought as a student I knew how to waste time on Facebook - but it's amazing how much time you can waste if you really try! My parents had more e-mails in that week than in 3 years of university! At last we woke up on the 29th August. The Final. I have only watched our race once, on iPlayer when we got home. Anna Bebington told me a few months ago that she hates watching her race in Beijing, as she wants to remember it herself, not just remembering a TV screen. I understand what she meant now - on film I can see the technical issues we still have to overcome and the things that are wrong - in my head I remember us moving away in that last 300m to take the gold. However, I also remember the things I could have done better and should have done better. (Dad tells me off for never being satisfied, but perhaps it is because I see 2009 as the beginning, not the end! We shall see.)
From crossing the line to standing on the podium is a complete blur, but having the national anthem sung by all the GB supporters in the stands, and watching our flag raised for us, was just indescribable. Roll on 2010...
I have been told that it is very unusual for a "gappy" to write for the Bluefriars magazine at this stage in the year... I am looking forward to what we can achieve in the coming months. I am excited about the prospects for the development of the club, and the results we can produce not just this year, but set up for the years to come. MCSBC sets up a totally new set of challenges for me... I hope I can write this time next year and let you know how I got on!
Rhiannon Jones - GBR LTA4+ cox