After a hard day racing, the only thing left standing in the way of Typhoon Tigers and the Sauna was the 1000m event....

Nottingham Nationals 1000m Competition

Open 1000m – Heat 1

As we were readying to board the boat, the expression of most of the crew was calm and collective. Would you blame them? The pains of the Great River Race were still imprinted into their mind and that this 1k race was a piece of piss compared to 23 miles… Still, we had nothing to expect as we were facing strong long distance crews such as 3 Rivers, Henley and Worcester, all big names in the long distance discipline. How would we fare this year? Would it be a repeat of last year where we were left on the blocks as the other teams just powered forwards? Only time would tell and we started the long paddle up towards the starting blocks.

The adrenaline was still pumping after an excellent day of 200m racing, we could only try our best as we waiting for the start to be called… Paddles were ready, concentration focussed and waiting for the call, soon it was all going to kick off. We looked on the right of us, Three rivers was in Lane 2, then Henley in Lane 3 and Worcester in Lane 4… We could see the end of the course, with all the pillars and flags, which was our goal. Paddles were dipped into attention as the alignment of the boats was almost completed… 3, 2, 1… Go!!!

We were off!!! We had a good start, but not good enough to fly pass 3 Rivers, they were still neck and neck with us from the start… Into the lengths, we could only rely on our pacers to set a good pace where we wouldn’t burn out and boy was it a good pace!!! The boat surged forwards and forwards, still with our nearest rival within boat lengths, giving us the motivation to continue with the stroke pace and power into the drive down and kicking back with all our strength. It was only until the 400m mark when 3 Rivers started to really pull away, but we didn’t give up without a fight… It was hard work towards the end but we could only drive forwards with more determination and efforts with our paddles. Before we knew it… 1km was over in a flash!!! We could only return to the pontoon and await our results.

3 River Serpents (4:28.14), Typhoon Tigers (4:34.63), Henley DBC (4:42.01), Worcester DBC (4:49.23)

Open 1000m – interlude

As we gathered around and waited for the results to be announced, we were all in high spirits as we knew that we beaten Henley and Worcester but had we done enough to qualify with a fast time for the Major or Minor Competition…the waiting was excruciating but soon JC came across with a smile on his face – a very common sight for the day. It seems that not only did we qualified for the Major Final, our 3rd for the day we also knocked 20 seconds off our last year’s time!!! Quite an achievement for a crew that doesn’t race 1000m, but the adrenaline soon wore off when we realised that we had to do another 1000m and this time it was against the top five team in the country…

Open 1000m – Grand Final

As we waited in lane 6, looking across of the course we could see Thames to the right of us, then Batchworth, 3 Rivers and BA. We were determined to make this last race our best… but things just didn’t go to plan… our fast start wasn’t quite there and we were neck to neck with our closest boat, Thames, but try as we might, Thames were just gaining momentum and surging past us bit by bit… We could only keep our calm and do what we were trained to do and that was to follow the paddle in front and keep driving the paddle down. As the other crews manage to pass us and put some distances between us, it was then that we understood the vast gap between us and them… somehow they managed to maintain their stroke and power whilst we were maintaining the same pace but power was dropping… For what seemed an eternity, the finish was near, we made a last effort for the line and once that was over, boy was we glad that it was over!!!

Batchworth Dragons (4:05.93), Amathus DBC (4:10.56), Thames Taniwhas (4:13.27), Three River Serpents (4.27.04) BA Hurricanes (4:28.23), Typhoon Tigers (4:37.06)

Open 1000m – Final Words

As we left the boat on the dock, we reflected on the whole day event, somehow most of the people on the boat managed to race in every single race and was still walking proud that we had achieved so much from the first day. We had managed to reach every single major final, something that was only dreamt about last season but we had made that dream a reality… We knew that today was all about our favourite event, the shorter 200m, even though we didn’t walk away with any podium places we could still be proud to be up there with the top 5 teams in the country and they were not weaken as we were hoping…We knew that the next day would be the biggest test of the year… the dreaded 500m! But first it was back to the hotel for some well deserved sauna! Bring it on!!! Tigers do not know the meaning of failure, they learn from it!

Written by Alan To.