RowingRelated

With the 2015 World Rowing Championships set to take place in Aiguebelette, France, we thought it only proper to take a look back at the last world championship regatta held there, when Jamie Koven took the title in the men's single in an all star-laden field. How did he pull it off? Take a look at the silky smooth technique he employed and you'll get a sense for why his bow crept out in front. There are so many reasons to like this video: Double Olympic champion (1992, 1996) André Willms' sunglasses; six-time Olympian Václav Chalupa's mustache and extra-large white tee underneath his uniform; Greg Searle uncorking yet another strong sprint to nearly take silver from Willms; Aly Ibrahim's (Egypt's most successful rowing athlete, competing at four Olympics) first 500m—a year earlier, Ibrahim had finished less than three seconds back of Rob Waddell in Atlanta, for eighth overall at the Olympic Games; and, of course, four-time Olympic medalist Iztok Čop ...

This week's video comes to us from British Rowing, and is part of a 12 week web series entitled The Squad . This update features input from a number of the biggest names in our sport (including Greg Searle , Alex Partridge , Andy Triggs Hodge and Pete Reed , and others) about selection in Jürgen Grobler's GB Rowing system. The emphasis, as you might expect, is on the unpredictable nature of selection from year to year, as there are no guaranteed seats–a familiar idea that fosters intra-squad competition. The difference is, in Grobler's case, so many of the parts that make up the whole have Olympic and world medals already on their resumes, both adding to and taking away from the pressure of selection. Given the results from 2011, it appears (from the outside) that Grobler could field medal-winning crews in the M8+, W8+, M4-, M2-, LM4-, W4x, LW2x, and LM2x ('amongst' others) by simply leaving things the same. However, because of the elevated status of GB Rowin...