Rowing: Life's tough at the top

After the excellent competition display we saw at weightlifting (see below) we continued our journey onwards, traveling further afield from Algiers. The dam where the rowing competition was being held is set in a beautiful landscape reminiscent of the Boland, complete with vineyards and fruit orchards. The venue features a newly built water sport centre complete with new jetty for the rowers to launch from. It's clear the Algerians had been working hard prior to the All Africa Games to ensure good facilities.

I'm not sure whether it's a water sport thing, but similar to the sailors I wrote about a few days ago, the rowers were very comfortably ensconced on the banks of the dam in the shade of a gazebo. They even had their physiotherapist in tow, therapy bed set up right there on the waterfront. I was introduced around by team manager Jean Kelly, who told me they couldn't have received better treatment anywhere else. "There were even shrimps in the paella we had last night", she said. While the wind factor on the water was a bit of a nuisance, the clean dam, clearly only recently completed - was a welcome break for some of the team from the hyasinth-invested water of the Roodeplaat dam.

Jean also introduced my to a chap that faintly resembled a modern day Viking - the Panic Mechanic (left) - who is with the German company that manufactured the team's boats, and who - hear this - drove from France in his bright red Chev van full of hi-tech tools to come and provide technical support to the rowing team. Now that's professional, having your own mechanic at hand! Most importantly, the Panic Mechanic had a fridge or two on his rig, one of which was filled with German beer, which of course made him a few instant fans in the South African team.

Looking around, Jean pointed out the boats of some of the competing teams. "Certain of their boats are wrongly rigged, something we pointed out to them and helped fix," she said. I was dumbstruck, but she just shrugged: "We're looking for a good competition, so we help them out."

Man of the moment in the team was world silver medallist Tony Paladin, who was waiting to compete in the LM class heat when I arrived. Focused and determined, he seemed quite remote from the frivolous atmosphere under the gazebo, being clearly in the 'zone' top athletes enter when competing. He finished an easy second place in the heat. "No need to push yourself in the heats since timing's not involved,' Jean explained. "A qualifier is all he needs."

Now, since my head is spinning with the technical details of about twenty different sports, I'm not going to try and interpret the results SMS Jean sent me after my faithful driver Nounow and I left to return to Algiers. I'm simply going to include it here verbatim, for the rowing guys to make of it what they want:

Shaun keeling won the M1x heat. Through to A final. Rika geyser won the W1x through to the A final. Men - lightweight and heavyweight through to A final. Tony Paladin through to rep tomorrow.

That's it. Whatever, the rowers are doing well so far. Look our for more rowing photos in the gallery.

Technorati Tags: all africa games, sport, sports, rowing, south africa, southafrica, algeria, algiers