European Surf Championship preview

Four European nations, France, Nederlands,
Italy, UK  will come together for the 4th European Surf Rowing
Championships at Wijk aan Zee beach, Holland on the 28th August.

The crew entries and listings are
now on the ESRF website under the European Championships link.

Five Womens’ crews and 10 Mens crews
will compete for European medals and the title of Champion of Europe

The quality of the crews should not
be underestimated…

In the Womens category,
the Bude Runners UK womens crew 2010 – UK Champions are all powerful and will
take no prisoners on the day. The Dutch Delight NED has a combined tally of
55yrs of stillwater rowing experience in the crew. If the surf is small
then expect the women from Holland to use their superior technique to the full advantage.
The Perranporth Raiders UK and the Begle Piranhas FRA will need to
step up a gear if they want to be in medal contention.

In the Mens European Championship,
The Bude Barracudas UK will want to keep the European title they won in 2009.
The 2010 UK Champions Porthtowan Blue Bali would want to add the European title
to their CV for when they go to to NZ representing Great Britain in February
2011.

The Amsterdam Mongrols NED have an
elite rowing background with two Athens Olympic silver medallists in the crew.
When it comes to racing the competitive spirit will always rise to the top and
the Amsterdam Mongrols will go hunting for gold.

From France we have the big rowers
from Biarritz, an area known for it’s rugby and we can expect to see some
aggressive rowing. From Bordeaux the Begle Garcons will require good technical
skills to stay with their bretheren from further south, although they hold a
trump card, their sweep is from Bundaberg SLSC, Australia.

The city of Milan, famous for two
football teams, has entered The Cannottieri Milano Surfin’ ITA crew.
Filippo Moscatelli and his crew competed at the UK Surfboat Championships in
2009 making the semi finals. This time they plan to be in a European final,
where anything can happen when rowing in surf.

Hosts Surfboat Holland with Marcel
Stroo and Jeroen van den Berg are looking forward to welcoming all crews to the
Timboektoe Beach Club on Friday 27th August at 17:00hrs for the crew check in
followed by the ESRF AGM at 18:00hrs.

The contest starts for real on
Saturday 28th August with the crew briefing at 12 noon………..presentation
of medals and post event celebration will take place at The Timboektoe
Beach Club. I hope they know what they are in for!

Report from Peter Gaisford, UKSRL