Tight Racing Rules at QLD Masters Championships

The 2010 Queensland Masters Championship regatta was held over the weekend on the 17th and 18th of April at Lake Kawana on the Sunshine Coast with great success.  After a wet and windy start to the day on Saturday conditions cleared to become some of the best for racing seen at Lake Kawana for some time, and while Sunday morning became quite choppy the rain still held back and allowed for a most enjoyable regatta.

The Masters Championships marked two beginnings; firstly, the first ever Adaptive rowing races at a Queensland Masters Championships.  Nilson Boutet, a Arm and Shoulder rower and Eric Horrie, a Trunk and Arm rower completed the 1000m course in around 6 minutes with a gentle tail breeze to the applause of the watching crowd.  Both athletes hail from the Dragons Rowing Club and were so keen to race the scheduled start time was brought forward 10 minutes!  Made even more impressive was the knowledge that the race was just the third time Horrie had rowed.

Also notable was Queensland's newest rowing club, the Noosa Boat Club attending their first regatta.  The clubs Masters where busy handing out requests for sales or donations of equipment, and cheered home their team mates Rachel Mecham and Diane Crouch who won the clubs first medal, a gold in the Women's Masters F-J Double scull. 

Extremely close finishes seemed to be a norm across both days of racing, with 10 finals being decided by 1 second or less.  The closest finish of the regatta was in the Women's E-F Quad Scull, with Sunshine Coast Rowing Club just sneaking home by 0.23 of a second against a strong Surfers Paradise Rowing Club crew.  Also providing an exciting end to the regatta was the Mens E Quad scull, as a composite crew from Commercial Rowing Club and Redlegs Rowing Club, after leading the whole race, just managed to hang on after almost being rowed down by the UQBC/Tattersall's Rowing Club composite; 27 hundreths of a second being the difference in the end.

Toowong Rowing Club finished on top of the medal tally, with 16 gold, 7 silver and 6 bronze, closely followed by University of Queensland Boat Club with 15 gold, 14 silver and 9 bronze.  Stand out individual performances include Rick Kranen from Murwillumbah Rowing Club, who entered 9 events for 8 golds and 1 silver, Barbara Hall who entered 6 events and won 4 gold and 2 silver for Commercial Rowing Club and Russell Muller of the Sunshine Coast with 6 gold medals from 6 events!  Well done to those competitors and to all others which raced over the weekend, for a full list of results please click here.