We had a great weekend in Amsterdam. The weather couldn’t have been better. The race results were not quite as good as I’d hoped, but not bad considering the level of competition. This is the biggest race in this country, and while there are a lot fewer people here than in the US, a lot more of them row. Also, they tend to be taller, and in decent shape from cycling everywhere, so I thinkthe level of competition is up there with US Masters’ Nationals.
Me & Roeiste: 16/23 in the W2X
Rudder and partner: 8/28 in the M2X
Rudder alone: 25/34 in the M1X
In all of these races, all the Veterans (~Masters) categories are all mixed up together. The doubles races were Saturday and the singles races were Sunday. On Monday, we went to see the Keukenhof, which lies between Amsterdam and den Haag. We expect to go back again in a few weeks when my uncle visits, but there’s enough to see to make a second visit worthwhile. I will be putting up a trip report on the Avontuur site with pictures I took during Rudder’s singels race (our doubles races were at the same time) and with lots and lots of photos of tulips and hyacinths and daffy-down-dillies, but it will take a while to get the photos uploaded so I wanted to post a brief report here.
Meanwhile, this was a big enough race to bring out the pro photographers. Here are some of me and Roeiste, and here are several more of Rudder and his partner, plus one of Rudder alone.
Oh – and those those of you here for the knitting content (why? Not like there’s all that much of it!) over the weekend I finished one sock and got the other far enough along to being the heel gusset. It’s amazing how fast socks go with DK-weight yarn!
Those are some fantastic shots. I have lens envy.
It was interesting to see the hand position at the top (?) of the stroke. If I’d thought about it I’d say the hands pulled back parallel to each other with a bit of space between them, but I can see clearly one hand is above the other and the oar ends nearly meet. Does ‘handedness’ matter about which is the top hand? I see Rudder and his partner have same hands on top, which makes sense since they are rowing in unison.
Always curious to know about skills I’ll never have, ~LA