Planning your rowing regatta
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Big regattas often have heats, semis and finals over multiple days, and if you are racing multiple boat classes, this adds to further complexity. In this video, Ken discusses how to plan your regatta and what aspects to factor in when making your regatta plan.
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Video Transcript
From a coach perspective it's going to be very valuable sitting with an athlete working out what they're going to do in the race and they're feeling what the competition is and a few other particular critical things
it's really important particularly when you're rowing in a Regatta where there's heats repechages and semi's finals sometimes quarterfinals then it's really important to make sure that the athlete understands during a race where they need to be in order to get the best outcome we're at Nagambie at the moment and the Australian rowing championships are on and it's today's first day mostly Heats and the weather's great dead flat calm really good tomorrow looks like it's okay Wednesday looks like it's going to be a 28 kilometer an hour southerly so it's going to be a stiff wind so there's a good chance that the lanes will be redrawn so what that means is that you may find that you the fastest qualifier would normally be in say Lane three and you'll find if they reseed the lanes and Lane one is the best Lane because of the wind then the fastest qualifier is going to end up in Lane one so there's a significant penalty if you're in the opposite position so for example if you're the slowest qualifier and you end up in Lane six and it's a cross wind when were Lane one is the best one then you'll find that you're a severe disadvantage so it's often very important to work out where you're going to be you have to balance that with the need to conserve energy if you're in a rotation where for example in the Heats where you you may be in a rotation where for example in a single scull and a lot of entries you may find you even have Heats repechages a quarter final semi-finals and finals and so that's a lot of racing to do in quick succession and so to go flat out in every one of those is going to be difficult so it's really important to make sure that you understand where you need to come in a Race So if for example you're in a heat and the first two go through to the final for the semi-final and the rest go to the repechage then if the weather's good and predicted to be good then you can be a little bit more lenient in what you do if the weather is predicted to get bad when it comes to the semi-finals or the finals then you really want to make sure that you end up in a position where you do your best you can so if you're coming second and first is in in Target then if the weather's going to get bad then you a good idea is to take first if you can if you're second of course and you first you're not going to catch first then the answer is to conserve your energy you would make sure that third doesn't get past you and so it's really important to understand that progression if indeed you first two go through to the semis and you're in third or fourth or fifth sixth and you know you're not going to get through to the um through to the semis because you're not going straight away because you're not going to beat the people who wanted to because they're just too far ahead then the best answer in a lot of cases is to conserve your energy and don't use too much energy in the rest of that race don't try and beat someone in front of you for no reason if however the weather's forecast to be really bad for the next race be it the repechage or be it at the semi whatever then the answer is to try and beat the person in front of you in order to get a better spot but again it's a balance between consuming too much energy and getting the right position so good conversations to have with an athlete before they race so they understand it without having to think about it too much is where they should come in that race because there'll be One race in the Regatta that's the most important race for some it may well be the repechage because that's their best chance to progress for some it will be the a final and knowing where you sit in that scheme of things knowing what the weather's going to do knowing how fit you are and how much racing you can tolerate dictates a lot of how you should race a race in a Regatta that has each repechages Etc so make sure the athlete fully understands it otherwise you'll find you get tired athletes trying to achieve a result that essentially has minimal value over time be mindful if the weather's going to be bad then think really carefully about where you should come how hard you should try and try and predict what's the best outcome for you
it's really important particularly when you're rowing in a Regatta where there's heats repechages and semi's finals sometimes quarterfinals then it's really important to make sure that the athlete understands during a race where they need to be in order to get the best outcome we're at Nagambie at the moment and the Australian rowing championships are on and it's today's first day mostly Heats and the weather's great dead flat calm really good tomorrow looks like it's okay Wednesday looks like it's going to be a 28 kilometer an hour southerly so it's going to be a stiff wind so there's a good chance that the lanes will be redrawn so what that means is that you may find that you the fastest qualifier would normally be in say Lane three and you'll find if they reseed the lanes and Lane one is the best Lane because of the wind then the fastest qualifier is going to end up in Lane one so there's a significant penalty if you're in the opposite position so for example if you're the slowest qualifier and you end up in Lane six and it's a cross wind when were Lane one is the best one then you'll find that you're a severe disadvantage so it's often very important to work out where you're going to be you have to balance that with the need to conserve energy if you're in a rotation where for example in the Heats where you you may be in a rotation where for example in a single scull and a lot of entries you may find you even have Heats repechages a quarter final semi-finals and finals and so that's a lot of racing to do in quick succession and so to go flat out in every one of those is going to be difficult so it's really important to make sure that you understand where you need to come in a Race So if for example you're in a heat and the first two go through to the final for the semi-final and the rest go to the repechage then if the weather's good and predicted to be good then you can be a little bit more lenient in what you do if the weather is predicted to get bad when it comes to the semi-finals or the finals then you really want to make sure that you end up in a position where you do your best you can so if you're coming second and first is in in Target then if the weather's going to get bad then you a good idea is to take first if you can if you're second of course and you first you're not going to catch first then the answer is to conserve your energy you would make sure that third doesn't get past you and so it's really important to understand that progression if indeed you first two go through to the semis and you're in third or fourth or fifth sixth and you know you're not going to get through to the um through to the semis because you're not going straight away because you're not going to beat the people who wanted to because they're just too far ahead then the best answer in a lot of cases is to conserve your energy and don't use too much energy in the rest of that race don't try and beat someone in front of you for no reason if however the weather's forecast to be really bad for the next race be it the repechage or be it at the semi whatever then the answer is to try and beat the person in front of you in order to get a better spot but again it's a balance between consuming too much energy and getting the right position so good conversations to have with an athlete before they race so they understand it without having to think about it too much is where they should come in that race because there'll be One race in the Regatta that's the most important race for some it may well be the repechage because that's their best chance to progress for some it will be the a final and knowing where you sit in that scheme of things knowing what the weather's going to do knowing how fit you are and how much racing you can tolerate dictates a lot of how you should race a race in a Regatta that has each repechages Etc so make sure the athlete fully understands it otherwise you'll find you get tired athletes trying to achieve a result that essentially has minimal value over time be mindful if the weather's going to be bad then think really carefully about where you should come how hard you should try and try and predict what's the best outcome for you