Sometimes cheaters do prosper

Ok, this is an entry purely about sportsmanship, or the lack there of. Yesterday, Jason and I ventured down to watch The Great Race. An annual rowing event along the Waikato River, it features two major finale trophy races between the University of Waikato men’s and women’s eights and internationally invited teams. This year the women raced the University of Melbourne and the men invited a recently graduated team from Harvard University. Both races were sure to be close with strong showing from all teams in the week leading up to the race. Yet what I witnessed in these two races made me hang my head in shame for my new found love of the Waikato.

As a preface to the playback I am about to recount, I must explain a little something of the complexity of the course. The Waikato River has a very fast moving current, with favored sides for rowing along the way, with the entire 4.8K race run upstream. Prior to the race, the coxswains call the coin toss to decide not only the side on which they want to start, but also the side on which they want to finish. In both cases the visiting teams won the coin toss.

The women raced first with the favored Melbourne team showing a strong start. Within minutes, the two boats locked oars, as the Melbourne team attempted to cross the course in front of the Waikato women, necessitating a halt to the race. This now put Waikato in a favorable patch of water. Aligning again, the race restarted, with another oar locking halt happening within minutes. With the final restart, the Waikato team found themselves in favorable water once again leaving the Melbourne team struggling to regain their initial strength. An unfortunate happening, but nothing seemed quite out of the ordinary.

Then, the men got set to start. After a rolling alignment the red flag dropped, signifying the start. Yet, within minutes, with Harvard having gained good ground off the start, and making its first move to cross the river to find calmer water, the Waikato men suddenly stopped rowing. Now I’ve rowed a few races in my lifetime, and from what I witnessed on the big screen, I could see no reason the Waikato men should have stopped rowing. Suspiciously, they happened to stop at almost the exact location of the women, thus granting them good water off the restart and a sizable lead. I will say that I am not a Harvard fan (no, I did not attempt to gain admission and was rejected), but I quickly found myself cheering loudly for the burgundy clad men to make a strong comeback. And they almost did, losing by mere seconds. Just think what would have happened if the race hadn’t been tactfully stalled. I’m sorry Waikato men, you may have won, but in my book the US will always be number one.