On Saturday 1st of April selections were held in Addu for the chance for one boy and one girl to represent the Maldives at the Asian 2012 Olympic Qualification Regatta in Chungju, South Korea. The regatta will be held on 26th-30th of April and prior to that there is a training camp from the 15th of April to which the Maldives had also been invited. All flights, food, accomodation and travel expenses are being covered by FISA (the international rowing federation). As you can imagine everyone was incredibly keen to take part in the selections. So the single was dusted down and everyone given a chance to practice in it before the big day. Only two fell in which was very impressive given everyone's hatred of holding onto their blades at all times!
We had 20 students come down for selection starting at 830 on Saturday morning. Naturally we had a few glitches to keep us all on our toes and ensure that everything took just that little bit longer...... The motor boat engine developed a cancerous illness the night before and now only functioned in first gear - unable to keep up with a single it was so slow! The two stop watches we were using for the timing jointly refused to go past 35minutes so every 30 minutes racing would be paused as i ground slowly up and down the course resetting watches! Fishing boats appeared at inopportune moments during races and there was the general fun and frolics caused by steering into banks etc. With me for a coach it's going to be inevitable there will be steering fun and games.
Roba and Salmy were our erstwhile timers and had the unenviable task of standing on the shore in the sun for four hours taking times. By the end Roba had built himself a little 'house' - roof made of a sack draped over a bush, leaves for his feet and a nice piece of cardboard to sit on. Once we'd dropped off his cigarettes he seemed very content! Luckily, after 4 hours we had two winners!!! Fathimath Hasna Hassan from Addu High School and Ibrahim Sharu-u from Feydhoo School. Both won by 4s over second place and in the mens group we had 4 people joint second. The two selected were ecstatic and the others went away with a mixture of long faces, pleas to be allowed to race again and promises that they would never speak to me again!!
Roba and Salmy were our erstwhile timers and had the unenviable task of standing on the shore in the sun for four hours taking times. By the end Roba had built himself a little 'house' - roof made of a sack draped over a bush, leaves for his feet and a nice piece of cardboard to sit on. Once we'd dropped off his cigarettes he seemed very content! Luckily, after 4 hours we had two winners!!! Fathimath Hasna Hassan from Addu High School and Ibrahim Sharu-u from Feydhoo School. Both won by 4s over second place and in the mens group we had 4 people joint second. The two selected were ecstatic and the others went away with a mixture of long faces, pleas to be allowed to race again and promises that they would never speak to me again!!