|
Sue Banner speaks to Lucy Hart about
the Under 19 beach sprint rowing team. (September 2024) |
Sue Banner:
So I'm sitting in my beach hut last week at Studland, and I was just watching all these people run up and down training, and I began to think, I'm seeing the same people every day. And then I noticed the lady in charge. So I went over and introduced myself to her. And her name is Lucy Hart, and she's agreed to chat to me. So, Lucy, I see these people every day running up and down. Who are they?
Lucy Hart:
Well, they're the Great Britain Under 19 beach sprint rowing team.
SB: And are they going to be in the Olympics? Are they training?
LH: Well, the sport is in the Olympics. So the sports they start up, the athletes start on the beach, they run down the beach, they jump in the boat, they slough them out to 250m. They do a 180 degree turn. They sprint all the way back. They jump up in the boat, out of the boat. They run up the beach and hit a buzzer. And they do that side by side. It's fast and furious. And the sport wasn't in the Paris Olympics. It is in the LA Olympics. Okay. And it's not just an invitational sport, it is in for good. And these athletes are under 19, so potentially they could be in LA or they could be in the 28 Olympics. They're certainly that will be their ambition.
SB: And we've seen them here nearly every day.
LH: Yeah. So they some of the athletes are based here full time. Some of them are in other parts of the country. So we've got a couple of athletes from the Midlands. But what unites them is that they are all on training camp ahead of going out to the World Championships. So we're just what you've been watching is us doing our final prep before we fly out.
SB: So how long have you been here then? Because we've been here just this week.
LH: Yeah, we've been here since last Thursday, so we set up our beachfront course, but they do all sorts of rowing out to sea. They've been up and down the course. They have done strength and conditioning sessions. Yesterday they were doing a sprint running session. So they've got quite a lot of variety, but they're doing about 4 to 5 hours a day training.
SB: Wow. And is there somewhere here where they all stay together?
LH: No, they're not staying together on this camp. Sometimes they do because the athletes are local and we're not a funded program, and so we've tried to keep the costs down as low as possible. So we've used the local venue with people that have houses locally so that they can that the people that are visiting can stay with them. And so to keep costs as low as possible for the athletes.
SB: So presumably these athletes under 19 you say. So they must be at school or university or have jobs.
LH: The youngest we've got in the team at the moment is 17 today. Oh, and they raised up to 19. So they will have finished their. Some of them have finished their A-levels and they're just waiting to go to university. Actually the world Championships means that some of them will miss their freshers week because I think that's worth missing..
SB: Yeah, I think you're right. It's called beach sprint rowing.
LH: Beach sprint rowing, and it's part of the wider coastal rowing. So there's lots of different versions of rowing on the sea. There's a local league in this area called the Handsome Dorset League, and that goes from Portsmouth right the way around to Swanage. And that's a different type of rowing boat. That's a long, traditional history. That's about 100 years worth of history in that type of rowing. One of the clubs in Southampton is called Cole Porters. And there they literally do what it says on the can. So their job was to row out to the ships and bring the Cole back, of course. And legend has it that that's how rowing started. So there's another club over there called the British Transport Corporation, and they used to start racing each other out to the ships and back. And that was kind of the birth of the league. Funny story, as the boats are a specific for that league or a specific length, and they had to be the same length as, as a bus because they had to they used to transport their boats on the top of a bus, and then the boats couldn't be longer than that. And so that's how that fixed length. That's right. So that's one version. There's another version called gig rowing. You might have seen that they're around at Swanage.
SB: We see loads of that at Swanage.
LH: Yes, that's right, they're fixed seats boats. So ours are sliding seat, they're fixed seats. That's another version of coastal rowing. And then there's two versions of what you're seeing now. One is the endurance event where they row around out to sea around a six day course they navigate around. And the world championships for that are the week before the beach sprint World Championships.
SB: So are some of your people in that.
LH: So you might have seen Claire, our senior woman athlete. She's gone out to race in the enduro the week before the sprint finals.
SB: And so the beach sprint finals, you say in two weeks time.
LH: Yeah, there are, there are, there are ten days time there a week on Saturday.
SB: And will we be able to see it? Is it on television?
LH: So if you go onto YouTube and you search for World Beach Sprint finals. Yeah. Genoa 2024.
SB: Oh, it's in Genoa.
LH: It's in Genoa. Wow you'll be able to follow the racing.
SB: Good heavens.
LH: Now the format is on the first day they do a time trial. So you probably have seen that we've had two lanes up. Yes. The time trial, they go, they slalom out on lane two, go across to lane one and they come down the outside of lane one. So the time trial is to rank the athletes. So it ranks them from one to however many are in the event. And then that dictates the the format for the side by side racing. So say there were eight athletes in it and they were ranked 1 to 8. Then one would be versus eight, two versus seven, etc..
SB: Oh see? Heavens. Wow. And so all of the people we've seen here, they're all in the team. Are they?
LH: They are all in the team. Yeah.
SB: It's they're not they're not here. We wondered if they were here trying to get in your team.
LH: No, we so we I'm based here full time. And so I'm employed by British rowing to Well, my actually, the actual substance of my job is to find athletes and train them so that they're good enough to win medals at world Championships or ultimately the Olympics. That's the whole purpose of my job. And we've got a centre, an academy here. So we're based here.
SB: All right. And what is your title, then? Did you tell me?
LH: So I am in this context. I'm a GB team coach in my my substantive job is the England pathway coach and pathway meaning taking athletes and facilitating their journey into the Great Britain team. Okay, so were you.
SB: Are you a rower?
LH: I yeah, so I do both formats of the sport. I do river rowing and coastal rowing. The reason that I got into beach sprint rowing is because during lockdown, the only place that you could row was here. So I'd not actually been out coastal rowing before, but this is the only place that you could do it. And I started I started rowing some other people. So the actually the women's senior athlete that had been here all week she was out just training and I started coaching her. We went to the British Championships. She got the silver medal and got into the Great Britain team. And that was 3 or 4 years ago, I think, and I was invited to stay to help out with the Great Britain Team trials, and I never actually left. And then because the sport is now into, if it happens, the 26 Commonwealth Games then funding followed that. So sport England there was an application to Sport England who then released some money to fund to fund a little a small portion of the programme and my job arose from that. Wow. So I became one of the first people in the world to be employed in a substantive position coaching beach sprints.
SB: That's amazing. So at the championships and at the Olympics, there's got to be a beach. Yes. There has. I was thinking 2012. We went to watch the rowing, but of course it was at Dorney where it was all so perfect and beautiful. Amazing.
LH: Yes it has. So there is a beach in LA and so they're not they haven't yet decided exactly which bit of the beach the beach prints will be at. I'm hopeful that in the World Championships over the next few years, that it starts to be in LA so that we get to see the venue and see what see what we can expect.
SB: So you've got me thinking now, so how does this work? So these are already in the team. Yes. You're going to be in the World Championship. They're going to be in the world champions in Genoa. So then if when it's at the Olympics, they will definitely be in it.
LH: No no they won't. So some of them, the beach princes in the Youth Olympics in 26. And I think it's quite realistic to think that some of those athletes will be in the Olympic team. Well there's quite a lot that goes on underneath it. So we have an English championships, a Welsh and a Scottish Championships and a British Championships, and we've had two sets of GB trials and we use all of that information or the selectors do. Luckily for me, I'm not a selector for this, but the selectors use all of that information to choose choose a team and that process happens annually.
SB: Oh I see. Yeah, I suppose that's true of any sport, isn't it, really? You just carry on doing your sport to show how brilliant you are, and then see if you get selected. Exactly. That's marvellous.
LH: So we have we have camps here through. We have an England development programme where we've had camps throughout the year for athletes that have been interested in the format. All of these athletes can have been able to row before. So they are all part of rowing clubs around the country. Okay.
SB: So that's all like grass-roots rowing? Yeah. Like grass-roots football?
LH: Yeah, absolutely.
SB: It just comes and nobody else understands how it works. Yeah, exactly.
LH: Exactly that.
SB: So did I ask you why here?
LH: Yeah, it's a really good question. There is already a rowing club here called Coastal Barbarians. You might have seen their coastal barbarians.
SB: And then we noticed that you weren't part of them.
LH: We're always linked to them in terms of. We're it's a very supportive community and we support them. Actually, Bob, who runs Bob Cattell, who runs Coastal Barbarians, and he was a member of the GB team, the sprint team, in terms of the organisation of that many years ago. And him and Coastal Barbarians do a massive amount to promote coastal sculling in the region. They're very influential within the South coast and they drive the sport, the wider sport, the community aspect of the sport. So Coastal Barbarians is set up just to get people out on the water and people rowing. So that's what they take anybody and everybody and they, they basically want to get as many people as possible. That's their ethos. Yeah. And so there was already that base here. I'm local. I rowed down here. I know what a great venue it is. And it was a natural place for us to, to keep boats. Now, in terms of a beach sprint venue, it's got a very small tidal range. So we can always get out. We're very well sheltered by Ballard down. And whereas the rest of the country, in terms of river racing, haven't been able to get out because it's been flooded and the winds have been high. We don't have that issue. So in terms of access to the water, it's fantastic. Well.
SB: That was going to be my next question, because the thing that's fabulous about here is it's so still. Yes. So if you're running a championships, have you got to have a place a bay with still water like this? Because most other seaside places, you've got waves.
LH: I love this question. So we actually love the waves. Okay. So every, every venue in the country, every beach in the venue has a compromise. So the compromise here is that we're so well sheltered that unless it's easterly winds, we don't get any shore break.
SB: Yeah, we'll take the easterlies.
LH: So we've got easterlies tomorrow, and we'll be doing our time trial prep and our race prep tomorrow. So our final big piece of work and we're all thankful that it's easterlies because we'll get shore break. And we love Shore break because the athletes on those boats surf and so they'll surf.
SB: I see, so that gives you an advantage coming in.
LH: Well yes. And disadvantage I suppose. Going out. Yeah. But also what sets this apart from classic rowing is their ability to row on the sea. And of course, on a day like this, we could probably bring our riverboats down and rowing our riverboats on the sea. But what we want is for the sport to be an entirely different and exciting, dynamic sport, where the athletes have to be super skilled to be able to cope with the conditions and mainly the shore break. So it brings challenges for their navigation. It's super challenging to get in and out of the boat. So yeah, we love that.
SB: I see. That's marvellous.
LH: Well, I've got some exciting news to share.
SB: Breaking news. We love that break.
LH: Breaking news is on the 28th of September, it’s the home countries international? It's local. It's going to be in Bournemouth at Tufts Zigzag. So if anybody wants to come and see and experience. Experience how exciting the sport is, that's the place to see it. Okay. So that's England versus Scotland versus Wales versus Ireland. And there's an invitational country jersey. And they all they all fight to be home countries. International champion I'm the England lead coach for that. And we've got a local interest. We've got Zara Gray. She's based in Lymington and she's part of the under 19 mixed double.
SB: And what's the name of that venue again?
LH: It's Toft Zigzag and it's between Bournemouth and Boscombe Piers. It's closer to Bournemouth than it is.
SB: On the 28th of September. Yeah. Anyone can come and watch.
LH: Yeah, anybody can come and watch. It'll be open. So it'll be on the beach. There should be some music playing. It should be like a little bit of a beach party. And then you'll be able to see the athletes racing out and racing back and come and cheer for your respective home nation.
SB: Oh, well, that's fantastic news. Great. Thank you so much for telling us about that. We'll be there to have a look.
LH: I'm expecting it now.
SB: Well come along. Well, thank you very much for talking to me. That was just great. I'm glad I came and said hello to you because we we made up all these theories about it, and now we know the truth.
LH: Yeah, well, the other thing I would say is, you know, if you're if you are down at Studland at Knowle Beach and you see us, then do come and say hello. We love chatting about the sport. We know that it's new and people haven't really seen it before. So do come along and ask, okay.
SB: And you're here for the rest of this week.
LH: We're here till we're here till Friday. Our last session is Friday, okay. And then we fly out on Tuesday.
SB: Fly out on Tuesday. Well, I'm going to be the first to say to you, good luck. And I hope it all goes really well. And I'll be watching on YouTube.
LH: Well I Hope as many people.
SB: As well as possible, all the rest of our listeners, we will support the team. I've watched, rehearsing, not rehearsing, practising, practising.
LH: Yeah, that'll give us a really good big boost to know that people at home are watching.
SB: Okay Thank you. Lucy, thank you so much for talking to me. Thank you.
So I'm sitting in my beach hut last week at Studland, and I was just watching all these people run up and down training, and I began to think, I'm seeing the same people every day. And then I noticed the lady in charge. So I went over and introduced myself to her. And her name is Lucy Hart, and she's agreed to chat to me. So, Lucy, I see these people every day running up and down. Who are they?
Lucy Hart:
Well, they're the Great Britain Under 19 beach sprint rowing team.
SB: And are they going to be in the Olympics? Are they training?
LH: Well, the sport is in the Olympics. So the sports they start up, the athletes start on the beach, they run down the beach, they jump in the boat, they slough them out to 250m. They do a 180 degree turn. They sprint all the way back. They jump up in the boat, out of the boat. They run up the beach and hit a buzzer. And they do that side by side. It's fast and furious. And the sport wasn't in the Paris Olympics. It is in the LA Olympics. Okay. And it's not just an invitational sport, it is in for good. And these athletes are under 19, so potentially they could be in LA or they could be in the 28 Olympics. They're certainly that will be their ambition.
SB: And we've seen them here nearly every day.
LH: Yeah. So they some of the athletes are based here full time. Some of them are in other parts of the country. So we've got a couple of athletes from the Midlands. But what unites them is that they are all on training camp ahead of going out to the World Championships. So we're just what you've been watching is us doing our final prep before we fly out.
SB: So how long have you been here then? Because we've been here just this week.
LH: Yeah, we've been here since last Thursday, so we set up our beachfront course, but they do all sorts of rowing out to sea. They've been up and down the course. They have done strength and conditioning sessions. Yesterday they were doing a sprint running session. So they've got quite a lot of variety, but they're doing about 4 to 5 hours a day training.
SB: Wow. And is there somewhere here where they all stay together?
LH: No, they're not staying together on this camp. Sometimes they do because the athletes are local and we're not a funded program, and so we've tried to keep the costs down as low as possible. So we've used the local venue with people that have houses locally so that they can that the people that are visiting can stay with them. And so to keep costs as low as possible for the athletes.
SB: So presumably these athletes under 19 you say. So they must be at school or university or have jobs.
LH: The youngest we've got in the team at the moment is 17 today. Oh, and they raised up to 19. So they will have finished their. Some of them have finished their A-levels and they're just waiting to go to university. Actually the world Championships means that some of them will miss their freshers week because I think that's worth missing..
SB: Yeah, I think you're right. It's called beach sprint rowing.
LH: Beach sprint rowing, and it's part of the wider coastal rowing. So there's lots of different versions of rowing on the sea. There's a local league in this area called the Handsome Dorset League, and that goes from Portsmouth right the way around to Swanage. And that's a different type of rowing boat. That's a long, traditional history. That's about 100 years worth of history in that type of rowing. One of the clubs in Southampton is called Cole Porters. And there they literally do what it says on the can. So their job was to row out to the ships and bring the Cole back, of course. And legend has it that that's how rowing started. So there's another club over there called the British Transport Corporation, and they used to start racing each other out to the ships and back. And that was kind of the birth of the league. Funny story, as the boats are a specific for that league or a specific length, and they had to be the same length as, as a bus because they had to they used to transport their boats on the top of a bus, and then the boats couldn't be longer than that. And so that's how that fixed length. That's right. So that's one version. There's another version called gig rowing. You might have seen that they're around at Swanage.
SB: We see loads of that at Swanage.
LH: Yes, that's right, they're fixed seats boats. So ours are sliding seat, they're fixed seats. That's another version of coastal rowing. And then there's two versions of what you're seeing now. One is the endurance event where they row around out to sea around a six day course they navigate around. And the world championships for that are the week before the beach sprint World Championships.
SB: So are some of your people in that.
LH: So you might have seen Claire, our senior woman athlete. She's gone out to race in the enduro the week before the sprint finals.
SB: And so the beach sprint finals, you say in two weeks time.
LH: Yeah, there are, there are, there are ten days time there a week on Saturday.
SB: And will we be able to see it? Is it on television?
LH: So if you go onto YouTube and you search for World Beach Sprint finals. Yeah. Genoa 2024.
SB: Oh, it's in Genoa.
LH: It's in Genoa. Wow you'll be able to follow the racing.
SB: Good heavens.
LH: Now the format is on the first day they do a time trial. So you probably have seen that we've had two lanes up. Yes. The time trial, they go, they slalom out on lane two, go across to lane one and they come down the outside of lane one. So the time trial is to rank the athletes. So it ranks them from one to however many are in the event. And then that dictates the the format for the side by side racing. So say there were eight athletes in it and they were ranked 1 to 8. Then one would be versus eight, two versus seven, etc..
SB: Oh see? Heavens. Wow. And so all of the people we've seen here, they're all in the team. Are they?
LH: They are all in the team. Yeah.
SB: It's they're not they're not here. We wondered if they were here trying to get in your team.
LH: No, we so we I'm based here full time. And so I'm employed by British rowing to Well, my actually, the actual substance of my job is to find athletes and train them so that they're good enough to win medals at world Championships or ultimately the Olympics. That's the whole purpose of my job. And we've got a centre, an academy here. So we're based here.
SB: All right. And what is your title, then? Did you tell me?
LH: So I am in this context. I'm a GB team coach in my my substantive job is the England pathway coach and pathway meaning taking athletes and facilitating their journey into the Great Britain team. Okay, so were you.
SB: Are you a rower?
LH: I yeah, so I do both formats of the sport. I do river rowing and coastal rowing. The reason that I got into beach sprint rowing is because during lockdown, the only place that you could row was here. So I'd not actually been out coastal rowing before, but this is the only place that you could do it. And I started I started rowing some other people. So the actually the women's senior athlete that had been here all week she was out just training and I started coaching her. We went to the British Championships. She got the silver medal and got into the Great Britain team. And that was 3 or 4 years ago, I think, and I was invited to stay to help out with the Great Britain Team trials, and I never actually left. And then because the sport is now into, if it happens, the 26 Commonwealth Games then funding followed that. So sport England there was an application to Sport England who then released some money to fund to fund a little a small portion of the programme and my job arose from that. Wow. So I became one of the first people in the world to be employed in a substantive position coaching beach sprints.
SB: That's amazing. So at the championships and at the Olympics, there's got to be a beach. Yes. There has. I was thinking 2012. We went to watch the rowing, but of course it was at Dorney where it was all so perfect and beautiful. Amazing.
LH: Yes it has. So there is a beach in LA and so they're not they haven't yet decided exactly which bit of the beach the beach prints will be at. I'm hopeful that in the World Championships over the next few years, that it starts to be in LA so that we get to see the venue and see what see what we can expect.
SB: So you've got me thinking now, so how does this work? So these are already in the team. Yes. You're going to be in the World Championship. They're going to be in the world champions in Genoa. So then if when it's at the Olympics, they will definitely be in it.
LH: No no they won't. So some of them, the beach princes in the Youth Olympics in 26. And I think it's quite realistic to think that some of those athletes will be in the Olympic team. Well there's quite a lot that goes on underneath it. So we have an English championships, a Welsh and a Scottish Championships and a British Championships, and we've had two sets of GB trials and we use all of that information or the selectors do. Luckily for me, I'm not a selector for this, but the selectors use all of that information to choose choose a team and that process happens annually.
SB: Oh I see. Yeah, I suppose that's true of any sport, isn't it, really? You just carry on doing your sport to show how brilliant you are, and then see if you get selected. Exactly. That's marvellous.
LH: So we have we have camps here through. We have an England development programme where we've had camps throughout the year for athletes that have been interested in the format. All of these athletes can have been able to row before. So they are all part of rowing clubs around the country. Okay.
SB: So that's all like grass-roots rowing? Yeah. Like grass-roots football?
LH: Yeah, absolutely.
SB: It just comes and nobody else understands how it works. Yeah, exactly.
LH: Exactly that.
SB: So did I ask you why here?
LH: Yeah, it's a really good question. There is already a rowing club here called Coastal Barbarians. You might have seen their coastal barbarians.
SB: And then we noticed that you weren't part of them.
LH: We're always linked to them in terms of. We're it's a very supportive community and we support them. Actually, Bob, who runs Bob Cattell, who runs Coastal Barbarians, and he was a member of the GB team, the sprint team, in terms of the organisation of that many years ago. And him and Coastal Barbarians do a massive amount to promote coastal sculling in the region. They're very influential within the South coast and they drive the sport, the wider sport, the community aspect of the sport. So Coastal Barbarians is set up just to get people out on the water and people rowing. So that's what they take anybody and everybody and they, they basically want to get as many people as possible. That's their ethos. Yeah. And so there was already that base here. I'm local. I rowed down here. I know what a great venue it is. And it was a natural place for us to, to keep boats. Now, in terms of a beach sprint venue, it's got a very small tidal range. So we can always get out. We're very well sheltered by Ballard down. And whereas the rest of the country, in terms of river racing, haven't been able to get out because it's been flooded and the winds have been high. We don't have that issue. So in terms of access to the water, it's fantastic. Well.
SB: That was going to be my next question, because the thing that's fabulous about here is it's so still. Yes. So if you're running a championships, have you got to have a place a bay with still water like this? Because most other seaside places, you've got waves.
LH: I love this question. So we actually love the waves. Okay. So every, every venue in the country, every beach in the venue has a compromise. So the compromise here is that we're so well sheltered that unless it's easterly winds, we don't get any shore break.
SB: Yeah, we'll take the easterlies.
LH: So we've got easterlies tomorrow, and we'll be doing our time trial prep and our race prep tomorrow. So our final big piece of work and we're all thankful that it's easterlies because we'll get shore break. And we love Shore break because the athletes on those boats surf and so they'll surf.
SB: I see, so that gives you an advantage coming in.
LH: Well yes. And disadvantage I suppose. Going out. Yeah. But also what sets this apart from classic rowing is their ability to row on the sea. And of course, on a day like this, we could probably bring our riverboats down and rowing our riverboats on the sea. But what we want is for the sport to be an entirely different and exciting, dynamic sport, where the athletes have to be super skilled to be able to cope with the conditions and mainly the shore break. So it brings challenges for their navigation. It's super challenging to get in and out of the boat. So yeah, we love that.
SB: I see. That's marvellous.
LH: Well, I've got some exciting news to share.
SB: Breaking news. We love that break.
LH: Breaking news is on the 28th of September, it’s the home countries international? It's local. It's going to be in Bournemouth at Tufts Zigzag. So if anybody wants to come and see and experience. Experience how exciting the sport is, that's the place to see it. Okay. So that's England versus Scotland versus Wales versus Ireland. And there's an invitational country jersey. And they all they all fight to be home countries. International champion I'm the England lead coach for that. And we've got a local interest. We've got Zara Gray. She's based in Lymington and she's part of the under 19 mixed double.
SB: And what's the name of that venue again?
LH: It's Toft Zigzag and it's between Bournemouth and Boscombe Piers. It's closer to Bournemouth than it is.
SB: On the 28th of September. Yeah. Anyone can come and watch.
LH: Yeah, anybody can come and watch. It'll be open. So it'll be on the beach. There should be some music playing. It should be like a little bit of a beach party. And then you'll be able to see the athletes racing out and racing back and come and cheer for your respective home nation.
SB: Oh, well, that's fantastic news. Great. Thank you so much for telling us about that. We'll be there to have a look.
LH: I'm expecting it now.
SB: Well come along. Well, thank you very much for talking to me. That was just great. I'm glad I came and said hello to you because we we made up all these theories about it, and now we know the truth.
LH: Yeah, well, the other thing I would say is, you know, if you're if you are down at Studland at Knowle Beach and you see us, then do come and say hello. We love chatting about the sport. We know that it's new and people haven't really seen it before. So do come along and ask, okay.
SB: And you're here for the rest of this week.
LH: We're here till we're here till Friday. Our last session is Friday, okay. And then we fly out on Tuesday.
SB: Fly out on Tuesday. Well, I'm going to be the first to say to you, good luck. And I hope it all goes really well. And I'll be watching on YouTube.
LH: Well I Hope as many people.
SB: As well as possible, all the rest of our listeners, we will support the team. I've watched, rehearsing, not rehearsing, practising, practising.
LH: Yeah, that'll give us a really good big boost to know that people at home are watching.
SB: Okay Thank you. Lucy, thank you so much for talking to me. Thank you.
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Copyright Purbeck Sounds Ltd. No unauthorised copying or usage permitted