With a little bit of blooming luck . . .
SA’s rowers are due a change in fortune after a bad run
● SA’s rowers are looking for a solid stretch of good luck after landing on the wrong side of fortune for much of the year.
With the Tokyo 2020 Olympics less than eight months away, they’re determined to catch a few good breaks.
The national squad is at their high-altitude training camp at Lesotho’s droughthammered Katse Dam, where they must drive 10km to get to the water.
Head coach Roger Barrow has swapped the mountain bikes they pedalled up the dusty roads into the surrounding hills for stationary Watt bikes.
Earlier this year, Lawrence Brittain, the 2016 Olympic silver medallist who is the cornerstone of Barrow’s heavyweight crew, took a tumble and broke his ankle just before they left for their first international competition in Italy.
One camp was called off after the bulk of the squad picked up a stomach bug.
At another, Brittain and his pairs partner John Smith fell ill, forcing them to skip the only World Cup regatta they were scheduled to compete in ahead of the world championships.
It takes three weeks for a rower to get back after missing one week of training.
“We do need a lot to go right,” said Brittain. “Me and John, we had a lot of injuries, a lot of sickness [this] year, we spent a lot of time out the boat.
“We need to make sure our season is much better from now ... We just had problem after problem and then you’re just always on the back foot, you’re always trying to catch up.
“Now we’ve had a really good block. We need to have a really good December, January, string those together.
“We’re obviously going to have hiccoughs ... but we need to make it as close to perfect as can be.”
Despite the problems, Brittain and Smith qualified for the men’s pair boat for Japan by finishing ninth at the world championships in Austria in August.
“The Olympics is close, but we’ve still got a lot of time from now until then to iron it out,” said Brittain.
“We have decent speed and the field is really close ... I think with small improvements we’ll go up the field quite quickly.”
SA’s other two main crews, the men’s four and the lightweight women’s double sculls, failed to qualify at the world championships.
Both will have one more shot to book their tickets to Japan, at the Olympic qualifying regatta in Lucerne in May.
Ahead of Rio 2016, four crews qualified at the 2015 world championships and the fifth, the men’s four, made it at the qualification regatta in 2016.
“The pressure’s on because we haven’t qualified as many boats as we did last Olympics,” said Brittain.
“You can feel the pressure. Last time the pressure was to get fast and make the boat fast. Now the team in general has a big job to qualify. From that side, the pressure’s right up.”
Barrow is confident the men’s four can make it in Switzerland, but Kirsty McCann and Nicole van Wyk face a harder task.
Olympic rowing qualification for Tokyo has changed from previous years, and it’s likely to result in logjams of top boats vying for just two spots per class in Lucerne, notably in the lightweight double sculls.
With veteran Ursula Grobler retiring after the world championships, Barrow needs McCann and Van Wyk to get through the season unscathed too.
Likewise his eight men heavyweights, who are battling it out for the pair and four.
“We need some luck on our side.”
Now the team in general has a big job to qualify
Lawrence Brittain
2016 Olympic silver medalist