Britain hosts successful World Rowing Coaches Conference

The curtain came down today on a successful 2011 World Rowing Coaches Conference, attended by more than 100 global delegates and hosted in Windsor by British Rowing on behalf of FISA, the World Rowing Federation.

Members of the FISA Council held a parallel meeting at the Conference venue, offering the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) the opportunity to provide an Olympic overview to a large sector of the sport. 

This overview, given in the opening session of the conference by David Luckes, himself a hockey Olympian and now Head of Sport Competition for  for London 2012, was followed by a visit by delegates this morning to the  2012 Olympic rowing venue at Eton-Dorney and to Royal Holloway College in Egham which will serve as the Olympic Village for Rowing and Sprint Canoeing in 2012.

FISA’s Annual Gala Awards Dinner was last night at the River and Rowing Museum in  Henley-on-Thames supported by The Museum itself, Henley Royal Regatta and British Rowing.
 
Three British Rowers, all gold medalists at the 2010 World Championships in New Zealand in November , won awards for ‘FISA Crew of the Year’ – Anna Watkins and Katherine Grainger from the Women’s Double won in the Women’s section, and Tom Aggar in the Adaptive Section,
 
Anna Watkins said: ‘ I am thrilled to have won this award after such an enjoyable season in the double where we won every race’.  Watkins also paid tribute to her experienced partner, Katherine Grainger, three-times Olympic silver medallist, and to their coach, Paul Thompson.
 
Tom Aggar said: ‘ It is such an honour to win the Award for the second year in a row – I am lucky to have a great coach in Tom Dyson and big support from the GB Rowing Team system’