“Life isn’t fair.” That’s what most of our mothers told us. It’s especially not fair to individuals with serious impairments.
Actually, the sport of rowing seems to be a particularly unfair sport. At last year’s Henley Royal Regatta finals – ostensibly the most competitive day of rowing racing in the world, with a week of heats to find the two strongest boats – only 6 of 26 races finished within a boat length. In some sports, a strong performance by a weaker team can get the better of a weak performance of a stronger team. In major league baseball, winning over 60% of your games will place top of the league table. But in rowing, many races seem out of reach before they even get in sight of the finish line.
Pararowing’s international classification system is meant to level the playing field, but complaints of its fairness riddle the sport. Like all Para sport, a key to winning is being as minimally impaired as possible and still meet the classification criteria. Pararowing on has 3 categories (as opposed to paralympic swimming which has 14) which makes for very broad differences in impairment within each classification. And presently, a debate is raging about the distinction between PR1 and PR2 with PR1 strapping requirements (literally) loosened.
About a decade ago, the sense of unfairness in pararowing (there was very little “adaptive” rowing) got especially intense for disabled rowers. There were limited opportunities to compete, and they were grouped into very broad classifications which meant competing against a very few numbers of competitors with dramatically different abilities over and over again (for the same results).
Since that time, the Community Adaptive Group (CAG) has pioneered the Time Handicap system (Adaptive Time Handicap System – Adaptive Rowing UK), and I have been a central player in devising it, advertising it, trialing it, maintaining it, etc. As a result, I have been the recipient of the regular “feedback” that certain races weren’t “fair”. This issue came to a head this past weekend at Marlow Town Regatta. A very important race, with considerable benefit to the adaptive community, was hobbled because some athletes weren’t happy with the level of “fairness” n the field.
The Time Handicap system was not intended to make adaptive rowing “fair”. It was intended to make it more competitive. Big difference. “Competitive” means that the races are more closely matched for the benefit of both the athletes and the spectators. It has been very successful at meeting that objective. The majority of races finish within a boat length, and at some event a sizeable portion are bow ball finishes (an exciting, yet rare event in the sport).
And yet, the time handicap system has never been applied to the highest profile races like national, international, and some local competitions all of which would prefer this format for their event. These events are set up to determine “best in class” (not “best individual performance on the day” which is really what a handicap system determines). And the “class” really has to be, for fairness-sake, the international FISA or UK British Rowing classifications.
In such cases, where a particular event seems a bit skewed to a stronger competitor, winning isn’t everything. There are a number of other reasons to carry on with the imbalanced race:
- JOY OF ROWING – For starters, rowing in an event can be its own reward, plying your boatmanship in front of the crowd. Not showing up is a lost opportunity to enjoy your sport on a bigger, different stage.
- CRITICAL MASS – UK adaptive/pararowing is still in its infancy and many competitions say that they would like to offer adaptive events, but when they do, no one (or not enough) register. Not showing up means that races get cancelled, often creating a vicious circle where adaptive rowers lose enthusiasm for the sport due to lack of racing opportunities.
- PROFILE – The most prevalent time when we receive enquiries about adaptive rowing is on the heels of an event where some spectator(s) watched the racing and say “I saw disabled people rowing at this regatta and was wondering how one gets into that…” Not showing up deprives that person of awareness and the sport of their future support.
- GENEROSITY – One never knows what one is going through and winning a race might be just the thing that helps that athlete endure a bunch of challenges being thrown at them (and we all know that disabled individuals have more than their fair share of challenges). Not showing up could deprive someone of the boost they really needed that day.
Today Sheila Forde of Marlow RC is competing in the Grosvenor Cup at Women’s Henley Regatta. She has been fighting injuries for several months and has not been recording her top times, but she is proceeding anyway despite facing an unprecedentedly strong field for the reasons above. As a result, her being the 8th entry allows the event to hold a first ever heat/semi-final/final progression on the Grosvenor Cup. Regardless of how she fares today, she is already a winner.
Half of “winning” is just showing up…even if you a destined to lose that day’s race.
As usual Bruce, wonderfully said.
The typical comment of “winnings is not important but it’s the taking part” is very well applied in most of the events. Showing up to a race gives the opportunity to gain experience and be thoughtful of others. All events are different and there is always something we can take away from.
In relation to “time handicap or head starts”, this one have to be looked closely and with consideration of the differences in between disabilities, times trials data and athletes experience by organisers and umpires. I’ve been in events where times handicap has not been applied and the difference against a high performance opposition is huge. Considering this, in my opinion, there is not sense of fairness and competitive spirit.
Good luck to Sheila Forde!!.
As you said, she is already a winner!! Well done on her.