Kim Crowe Row Training Photos By Warren Clarke

“In saying all that, when you have a big boat going well, the actual feel of it running across the water is pretty amazing; it’s quite a magical thing to be a part of a bigger crew.”

TALL ORDER

“It helps to be tall as a rower; the leverage you have is an advantage. If you aren’t tall, it doesn’t mean you can’t be successful on the world stage, but you need to compensate for that in other areas: for example, you’d have to be stronger or super-fit.

“Am I tall for a rower? I’m 189cm ... I don’t often notice that I am tall, but then I go out in public and I think, ‘Yeah, I am actually quite tall.’ All the male rowers down here are much taller than I am, and quite a few of the girls are taller than I am.”

JOB DESCRIPTION

“In a double scull, you have a stroke seat and a bow seat. As a stroke, my job is to set the rhythm. I guess I’m the ‘driver’ of the boat. The stroke role is often seen as the more physical of the two, whereas the bow is the more technical. When I’m rowing with one of the girls who’s vying for the other double seat, I’m in the bow. My job there is to make the race calls, communicate, stay perfectly in time with my partner. To match her length, her rhythm, to make sure we’re cutting through the water at the same time.

“The bow is often the more experienced of the two rowers, just because there’s a little bit more responsibility in assessing how a race is going and feeling how the boat is going. Another advantage is that the stroke seat can hear the bow seat. The other way around, it’s a lot more difficult to hear because of the way sound travels and the way the boat is moving.”

RACE STRATEGY

“In rowing, you have quite different race strategies and plans, depending on who you are rowing with and against, and what boat class you’re rowing in. Quite often in the bigger boats, whichever crew completes the opening 1000m first, wins. The smaller boats are a lot more tactical. You have a lot more opportunity to respond to other crews and to actually race. I compare small-boat-rowing to a running race, where you can tactically manoeuvre yourself. Whereas in a bigger boat race you just have to pull as hard as you can for as long as you can

and hope you cross the line first.

“The crew who has been dominating the women’s double sculls for the past few years, the Brits, their strongest part of the race is their first 500m – I don’t think they’ve ever been beaten out of the blocks. That changes what our strategy might be or what other nations’ strategies might be.”