June 4, 2010

High Performance Scullers Success
Following their success at NSR II in the Men’s Lwt 2x Jon Winter & Brian Deregt (Princeton/GMS) are representing the US in three World Cup races in Europe. As this is being written they are about to compete in the first World Cup in Bled, Slovenia. In the Men’s Hwt 2x GMS rowers also came in 3rd (Steve Whelpley/Joe Spencer – PennAC/GMS) and 4th place (Jamie Koven-NYAC & Mike Sivigny GMS). Our other rowers also did well with personal best times. Both hwt doubles are invited to the US Rowing Quad selection camp in Princeton. You can follow Jon and Brian’s progress on http://www.gmshps.com/GMSHPS/Blog/Blog.html or on www.worldrowing.com

World Cup:
Jon & Brian now have the first World Cup race under their belt having achieved a very credible performance. Their semi-final was one of the best races of the Cup and they posted one of the fastest times in the highly competitive Lwt double. From World Rowing LIGHTWEIGHT MEN’S DOUBLE SCULLS (LM2x) –“Semifinal two turned into the hottest race of the day when six crews matched each other through the first half of the race, dropping down to four crews charging for the line, all hoping for one of the three qualifying places available. Forcing a photo finish was France (Jeremie Azou and Remi Di Girolamo), Italy One (Marcello Miani and Francesco Rigon), the United States (Jonathan Winter and Brian De Regt) and Portugal (Pedro Fraga and Nuno Mendes). Winter and De Regt were unlucky by a smidgen of a second. Italy, France and Portugal are in Sunday’s final.

Now for Munich!

Junior Success at Northeast Regional Championship
Congratulations to Maria Mayden coming 2nd in the Women’s Youth 1x and to Greg Burke and Sam Rouse coming in 3rd in the Mens Youth Lwt 2x. Both were extremely hard races with fast times and both boats qualify for the National Youth Championships in Cincinnati, OH. Other GMS boats also did well given they were mainly sophormores and juniors.

Summer Programs:
The Junior programs start on June 7th and in addition we will be holding summer camps for beginners and returning rowers. Please refer to the GMS Web site www.gmsrowingcenter.us for details. Adult Learn-to-Row and Novice programs run monthly through to October – again please refer to the Web site.

Masters Worlds Training Camp:
A weekend training camp will be held on August 27th 28th & 29th to prepare rowers for the World Cup in St. Catharine’s, ON, Canada in early September. Please send GMS an e-mail gmsrowingcenter@sbcglobal.net if you are interested in receiving details. We are keen to put together composite boats and suggest you contact us if you are looking to make up a winning crew.

GMS Regatta:
September 19th 2010 – Please save the date. Registration is open on Regatta Central.

US Rowing Camps:
Starting June 14th GMS will be hosting and managing the US Rowing Junior Sculling Selection and Junior Sculling Development Camps. In addition the U-23 Lwt Women’s Camp will be hosted and managed by GMS. Guenter has organized training times to dovetail in with our own programs but all rowers should be aware of the increased traffic on the water. The peak time will be from June 20th to July 10th.

Safety:
All rowers must sign in and out in the log in the Boathouse or by the dock. Remember to launch towards the bridge and avoid the center of the water – this is where collisions are most likely to occur.

Coaches:
We are pleased to welcome back:

• Victoria Burke who will be with coaching and training with us through to Senior Worlds which this year will be held in November. Victoria will be the coach in charge of the Junior Elite program under the direction of Guenter. She will also be coaching the Adult Learn-to-Row and Master programs and is available for private lessons.
• Mike Orzolek has now graduated from Mercyhurst College and joins us as an assistant coach for the next year. Mike is training for the U-23 World Championships and after that for the Senior World Championship in 2011. He will be responsible for the Summer College Program and for assisting coaches in charge of the other programs. Mike is also available for private tuition.

Equipment:
Mike Orzolek will be responsible for checking all our boats and over the next few weeks we will be refurbishing shoes, tracks and other details.

We are also in the process of purchasing a Wintech Competitive Double for use primarily by the our Novice and recreational rowers but it will also be available for competitions. Additionally, due to the success of our fund raising activities we will be purchasing more doubles.

Water Conditions:
On the GMS Home Page you can find direct links to the local weather and to the run rate of the water. The flow can be dangerous following flash storms and after heavy rain in the fall and early spring. The run rate is safe below 3,000 sqft per second. If you want to be informed about water levels please go to the www.lakelillinonahauthority.org and join the Lake Alert service – see the icon on the top right of their home page. This will put you on their automated alert service.

Friends of the Lake (FOTL):
Please look at their new revamped Web site http://www.friendsofthelake.org/ . On their home page you will see an article on deploying hi-tech devices to monitor water quality. “Electronic Data monitoring: FOTL is in the process of deploying automatic electronic data monitoring sensors to measure water quality parameters including lake elevation, dissolved oxygen content, water temperature, acidity (pH), conductivity … read”

This represents a significant investment and will be very much to our advantage. You will be able to download an application to your iPhone which will send a picture of debris with the date, time and GPS location to the FOTL Web site. This information is available to the public and also to researchers.

Wishing you all a successful season