Rowing is, perhaps, one of the most difficult sports ever conceived. Not in the execution of the technique nor the physical requirements needed to move a boat – both are relatively straightforward and proficiency can be achieved quickly – but in the demands it places upon the mind. It is long and often unforgiving, performed primarily through cold, harsh winters with little to no immediate reward. Unless you’re an Olympian and tracking a different route through the wilderness, rowing offers little in the way of salvation when you’re straining against the handle.
And then there’s Henley Royal Regatta.
As I sit writing this piece, the sun slowly sinking beyond the brim of the horizon and colouring the Thames a soft pink, I am struck by my inability to define what Henley means to a rower. It is as Mecca is to Islam, a place to pay tribute, to vest the energy expended through the apex of the year in one glorious moment of mutual appreciation. It is a cathedral, a home to all who call rowing ‘their sport’, a unique corner of quiet Oxfordshire countryside that, once a year, comes alive to the beat of the athlete’s drum.
Like much of what we hold dear, Henley Royal Regatta 2020 was a victim to the COVID-19 pandemic. That moment, shortly after the government announced the first lockdown, provided me with the surest connection yet to how terrible this disease was and would prove to be. Nearly 18 months on and COVID-19 remains eminent in our society but the Stewards of the Regatta have had both the foresight and flexibility to stage the event nonetheless. Credit must go to them in spades.
I’ve competed, commentated, worked for and worked with the Regatta in my decade-long affiliation. Walking into the Boat Tents for the first time (an experience we won’t get to savour in 2021) is as special as watching St Paul’s smash yet another record on the fastest trip a schoolboy eight has ever had down the course in 2018. The majority of competitors at the Regatta travel hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles to step out in hope just once. To watch that red flag fall, the voices rising to a crescendo and the water rippling in the wake of bows, boats and bravery, only once is a difficult thing to contend with. Yet, Henley remains the pinnacle of most seasons, a golden mirage flickering in and out of sight as the miles are harvested and the seats are selected through the biting cold.
In 2021, things will feel a little different. There are adjustments to the infrastructure, a reduction in head-count, strange new places for crews to boat, battle, celebrate and commiserate. None of that matters though, not really. Henley is about so much more. That first paddle on the course during a lunch-break, charting a course between the booms as thousands of well-wishers and merry folk drink, revel and enjoy a never-ending summer’s day. The fall of the sun and the hush of the crowds as a race picks up momentum approaching the tea break. The swell of noise, coming towards you like a wave as you sit in the press box, of assembled friends, family, past winners and losers, driving two boats in deadlock towards the line. The evolution-defying madness of it all. To step into Henley is to take a stroll through the pages of time itself, treading the same path that generations of Regatta-goers have trodden before you.
And then there is victory. A privilege reserved for the few yet, in that moment as one bow nudges ahead in the closing stages, we all share in the pain, the sacrifice, the desire to win on the grandest stage of them all. As the arms go up and the water rises, scooped in celebration and cast into the air, we all follow a different narrative. There are those who remember what it felt like, who have lived that experience and re-live it time and time again in the imperfect melody of happiness and exhaustion etched onto a victor’s face. There are those who watch on, quietly planning for next year, next season, a new dawn and a new tilt at glory. And there are those, fresh-faced and wide-eyed, clutching a program with heady enthusiasm and a new, burning, brilliant dream to one day cross that line first.
Whoever you are, whatever you do and however you chose to spend your time at Regatta, it is a holy place, unspoiled by the relentless machinations of a society defined by the process of advancement. Shrewdly, the Regatta has allied to those technological developments that allow it to spread the message more widely, including a market-leading broadcast operation. Like all good causes, spreading the word remains a key tenet of their strategy.
Sat here, as twilight falls in Henley and the hum of activity falls to a whisper, I am struck once again by my strange, undying love for this sport. As an athlete who had neither the physiological nor psychological prowess required to excel, the sport gave me relatively little. I questioned myself consistently over why I persisted.
And then I stepped out onto the Henley pontoons, part of a crew, part of a team, part of a shared love and yet-to-be-written chapter of a collective dream. Tomorrow, hundreds of athletes will make that same journey and, perhaps, in one perfect moment of clarity realise – this is why we row.
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