Twelve members of the College travelled to South Korea to represent the college in the recent STX Cup Korea Open Regatta on the 30th of July. The 2km long race was held at Misari rowing lake, the lake used for the rowing in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
As far as the organisers were concerned, the aim of the event was to raise the profile of rowing in Korea. As a result, we featured in two separate episodes of the South Korean TV programme 'Infinite Challenge' (also known as 'Muhan Dojeon' in Korea). This is huge in Korea and with 25,000,000 viewers it has been said its popularity makes it the Korean equivalent of Top Gear! This was soon apparent when we became local celebrities and began to be recognised everywhere we went, getting stopped every few minutes to pose for photo's with fans!
The event's high profile was also highlighted by the fact that 10,000 people turned up to watch the event, more than attended the rowing at the Olympics! We also had the opportunity to meet senior officials of the rowing community, including the FISA (Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Aviron, the international governing body for rowing) Media and Promotions Commission officer, Mike Lee, helping to put SCCBC on the international map.
However, despite the scale of the event, we did not put too much pressure on ourselves. As a college, we couldn't help but think that competing internationally against university teams might be punching a little above our weight. Our competition comprised of: - Melbourne University - Keio University, Japan's leading university - Waseda, another Japanese University and Keio's rival (apparently in Japan their rivalry is likened to that of Oxbridge) - Three Korean universities (Yonsei University, Hankuk University, Seoul National University) - The Infinite Challenge comedian team.
Despite our initial apprehension, we raced very well. Unfortunately, a lack of translation at the start meant that we didn't know the race had started until the other boats began to row, and so we lost a good few seconds from the offset. However, once we recovered from a disjointed start sequence and settled into the race, we could see that we would fare better than we had originally hoped, finishing 3rd of 8, only being beaten by Melbourne and Keio. This was a great result for a college rowing team competing against university rowing teams, especailly given that it was a crew that had had only about three weeks to row together before travelling. Those that represented the college are as follows:
Coxswain: Theresa Kevorkian
Coach: Malcolm Spencer
Rowers:
Stroke - David Zimmer
7 - Hugh Taylor
6 - David Ashmore
5 - Ben Trigg
4 - Joshua Landreneau
3 - Daniel Rebnord
2 - Joshua Morgan
Bow - Matthew McGilvray
Travelling Subs:
James Boxall
Tyler Roberts
We would like to thank Joon Son Chung and his father, student and alumnus of St. Catherine's respectively, who organised our participation and helped to fund the trip. Without their help, not only would the trip have failed to have been such a success, but it is unlikely we would have had this fantastic opportunity at all. Their support and generosity were very gratefully recieved.
| Finish | Nationality | Crew | Splits | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500m | 1000m | 1500m | Finish | |||
| 1 | AUS | University of Melbourne | 1:24 | 2:55 | 4:28 | 6:00 |
| 2 | JPN | Keio University | 1:27 | 2:58 | 4:31 | 6:03 |
| 3 | GBR | St Catherine's Coll, Oxford | 1:32 | 3:10 | 4:49 | 6:27 |
| 4 | JPB | Waseda University | 1:35 | 3:14 | 4:55 | 6:32 |
| 5 | KOR | Yonsei University | 1:36 | 3:19 | 5:04 | 6:50 |
| 6 | KOR | Hankuk Univ. of Foreign Studies | 1:38 | 3:21 | 5:07 | 6:52 |
| 7 | KOR | Seoul National University | 1:39 | 3:24 | 5:10 | 6:53 |
| 8 | KOR | Muhan Dojeon | 1:54 | 3:54 | 5:56 | 8:03 |