Boost for development rowing at RMB SA Champs

This past weekend – 28 and 29 May 2022 – saw hundreds of athletes from around the country taking part in the RMB SA National Rowing Championship. The weather was perfect, with a light breeze making for ideal racing conditions.

This is the final regatta of the formal racing season, giving athletes valuable racing practice on the national 2 000-metre rowing course. A total of 640 athletes took part, made up of 341 men and 299 women.

The regatta was very special and a huge success, coming after two years of navigating Covid with minimal rowing and the hyacinth challenges on Roodeplaat Dam. The organising committee, coaches and volunteers did an amazing job of (among other things) clearing the surface of the dam and laying the course.

The rowing community came together beautifully. Past Olympic athletes supported from the banks of the dam, engaging with junior athletes and even getting into the boat with some juniors! The current RMB National Squad was in full swing and raced the whole weekend, ending with a magnificent eights race on Sunday.

The 28 athletes from Germiston High School really stood out with a great performance over the weekend, taking three gold, five silver and five bronze medals.

Supporting development rowing

It was great to have development rowing teams from around the country taking part and winning medals. The development teams and athletes did amazingly well – some winning medals and all returning home with great memories, new friends, lots of experience and a hunger to train and work harder to get better results next year.

For some development rowers, this is the only opportunity to race on water as they live far from rivers or dams, with minimal resources to row. The development teams also face challenges of finding boats, as they train on ergos and borrow boats at regattas. This was a challenge, with a few coastal teams borrowing boats for the same races. It highlighted the need for these teams to get their own boats for training and racing, and also to secure storage space for these boats.

The development rowers would not have made it without the involvement of sponsors Rand Merchant Bank.

“As a committed supporter of rowing in South Africa, RMB invests a great deal in the sport and development of athletes, including equipment, facilities and coaching,” says Alison Badenhorst, Chief Marketing Officer at RMB. “We trust that our involvement will ensure a strong talent pipeline for South African rowing.”

The regatta was live-streamed and received over 1 000 unique views each day from eight countries.

See all the results here.

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