Dear the Legion of Rowers,
I have just arrived home from Europe yesterday! The NZ cold is a bit of a shock to the system but good to be back home, somewhere familiar.
Juniors this year was such an unforgettable experience, lots of very high standard racing! Being in the single taught me a lot about managing myself as a rower and also has given me more drive to work hard for the coming domestic season. Coming away with a fourth place was pretty good, although no silverware. I gave the racing my absolute 100% so couldn’t have asked for anything better. Racing was very challenging but was fantastic experience for the future. Prague was a very beautiful city, so many old buildings and fantastic history. As a team we went for a tour one afternoon and looked around the city which was great.
Racice was a fantastic racing venue, a custom rowing course that was only about 2500m long, similar to other venues like Plovdiv. Was a very fast course with 11 world records broken over the course of our regatta which was impressive! It was a rather barren course, the surroundings reminded me of Twizel a bit, very dry environment as I think it was elevated a bit above sea level. We were very well equipped at the course, with the rowing NZ tent and trailer and ergs, plus a freezer and fans which were very very helpful to combat the heat. There was a heatwave while we were there with temps reaching up to 37 degrees so plenty of ice towels were used to say the least! Contributed well to the European summer glow though which was nice.Hotel Duo where the team stayed was very nice, located on the outskirts of Prague, about a 45 minute bus ride away from the course. Safe to say we got very well acquainted with the bus driver during our stay! While we weren’t training or racing lots of time was spent in the lobby playing cards and drinking raspberry lemonades from the hotel bar.
The tour was absolutely fantastic, amazing to be able to visit such a beautiful country, but to also get such good racing experience, and to be surrounded with such a successful team! Everyone got along really well and can’t wait to see everyone around the country this season. Thank you all so much for your fantastic support, gave lots of the badges to the officials at the world champs so they will be treasured by quite a few people all over the place! Being my third and final juniors campaign gives me a little bit of sadness to think that this was my last year as a junior, as all three years have been so fantastic. Being able to have been part of the magic for the past three years has been an absolute honour, and has taught me so much not just about being a successful rower but about being a driven and motivated person. Thank you again for your support, and will hopefully see you all around in the future!
Kind regards,
Veronica Wall ![]()
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