Week 11 - Banyoles, Spain

Jun 7

🌍 Round the World Week 11

📆 We are into the final full week of our Round the World in 80 days challenge. You’ve put in a total of 2650 hours training over 75 days, with 5 days of next week remaining. We‘ve actually covered more than the 40,000km it takes to travel round the world 🏁 but with our Euro detour, there’s a little bit longer to go. Great job everyone!

🇵🇹 This week we head away from Palin’s traditional route which headed into Europe via Le Havre, a French port in the Normandy region where the river Seine flows into the English channel. Instead, we’ve landed on the West coast of Portugal and headed inland to the Portuguese city of Coimbra, a total of 1941km

👩‍🏫 Coimbra is a riverfront city, and was once the country’s medieval capital. The city is most famous for its university, which was (amazingly) established in 1290 and situated in Lisbon until it moved to Coimbra in 1537. The University is one of the oldest in continuous operation. Our University, in contrast, was founded in 1892! We’re very young in comparison.

🚣‍♀️ Probably most importantly to us, however, was Coimbra hosting the European University Games in 2018, part of which was the rowing regatta, to which RUBC sent a strong team. The lake there is manmade, and first hosted the 2002 Coupe de la Jeunesse. While at the event, FISA judges noted the lake was not wide enough to meet international race standards! 😱 It was rebuilt and has since hosted the 2010 European Rowing Championships.

💜 The European Universities Rowing Championships were first organised in 2005 in Cardiff and have been run every year since (with the exception of 2012, and now this year!😢), and are coordinated by the European University Sports Association. The championships have been a season highlight for RUBC in recent years, and the club has sent athletes to Cardiff 2005, Moscow 2011, Rotterdam 2014, Zagreb 2016, Subotica 2017, Coimbra 2018 and Jönköping 2019. Our athletes all qualify for places with strong performances in Championship events at BUCS regatta. The next EUSA Regatta is a rescheduled event in Belgrade, Serbia that is now taking place in July 2021 - fingers crossed there’ll be a team sent next year! I haven’t counted up the medals we’ve won at EUSA, maybe someone would like to volunteer…

📸 I’ve got hold of a few photos from RUBC alumni to look back on some of the great times the club has had at EUSA, and here’s hoping for more great experiences in the future. With thanks to some of your predecessors; Jess Lewis, Simon Williamson, Franklin Hamilton, Olly Dix, Anna Smart and Fran Bratt, and to the boss Will Rand 🤩.

☀️ We traveled the 1247km from Coimbra, across Portugal and into Spain, en route to a small city in the Province of Girona in northeastern Catalonia; Banyoles! Most famous for its Lake, home of the 1992 Olympic Rowing, Banyoles has been our home from home most summers as we take a group of RUBC athletes on training camp there before BUCS Regatta. The lake is the largest in Catalonia, and is naturally formed from a tectonic depression. It’s 62m in depth at the deepest point, and contains 8 species of fish. There is also rumour of ‘the Banyoles Monster’ which I didn’t know about when I signed up for coaching there… You can Google that one.

🚀 This week, why don’t you all add photos of places you’ve trained and raced in Europe?

🎶 I’ll sign off with a link to something from RUBC’s latest visit to a EUSA rowing event. Enjoy - https://youtu.be/p0a4LkM4A3o

Graphics courtesy of Jess Lewis : madebyjess.co.uk