Saturday races

Jun 25, 2022

Ready. Set. Go. The Koninklijke-Holland Beker 2022 was finally back in full glory this morning. While the sun needed some guidance with finding the Bosbaan, the rowers were shining bright and early. Racing took off with the M4- heats, where the Skøll/Skadi/Orca combination was the fastest crew. Rowers Martijn Bos, Stijn Wieling, Jorn Salverda and Daan Klomp have already put themselves on the map this year with some excellent performances during national regattas and today they showed off during the KHB. At the end of this week, the crew will travel to the UK for the Henley Royal Regatta and they appear to be in good shape. The first medal of the day goes to the LM 2-, where a Brazilian pair triumphs. More victory went to Brazil when also the M2- crossed the finish line first.

In the Holland Beker, Kjetil Borch (Norway) had a rough start of the morning, as he didn’t instantly claim his spot for the next round. Callum Dixon from Great Britain took the lead in the heat with Borch and easily ensured his place for the semifinals. In the repechage however, Borch managed to finish first, so we will see the Tokyo silver-medallist tomorrow again in the battle of the Holland Beker. Next to Borch, no less than four Dutch rowers made it to the semi-finals tomorrow, after having proved themselves in the repechage. Apart from Borch, we will see more competitors from Scandinavia that will appear at the start of the Holland Beker semifinals as we have Martin Helseth (Norway) and Ahmet Rapi (Sweden). The battle for the Holland Beker will resume on Sunday a little before 11:00h, so make sure to check our livestream or to come enjoy the ambience on the Bosbaan.

When looking at the Ladies Trophy, we noticed it were our neighboring countries who showed off, with Rebecca Wilde (UK) and Sophie Templitz-Heywood (Germany) claiming the direct tickets to the A-final. In the repechage, the remaining tickets for the final went to three of our fellow Dutch(wo)men and the woman to watch, Ria Thompson (Australia), bronze-medallist of Tokyo. The final of the Ladies Trophy will take place at 15:00h, so another one to put on your calendar for tomorrow (we know you are lying on the couch around that time anyway).

As mentioned, once again the KHB is hosting the Open Dutch National Championships as well. Racing was hard and fair, but in some of the events, it was not hard to declare the victors. In the M2x, Wibaut Rustenburg (Skøll) and Guillaume Turlan (France) crushed their field and claimed the title very quite convincingly. Another notable mention is the FISU-eight, who claimed the Dutch title in the M8+, by racing to a respectable 05:38,10. Given the example by Wibaut, more rowers from Skøll raced to the National Title. The W4- was a full Skøll-crew and the proud winners of today’s race. The M4- crew that already showed off in the morning also had 2 Skøllies on board, and they went home with the title. Another notable highlight of the Open National was the LM2x, where a boat of Willem III made a hell of a fight with the boat from Great Britain. The boats continued to swap places during the races, but in the end the English had the final say and can boast about their Dutch National title. In any event, congratulations to all the winners!

For now, we’ll take a short break. We hope to see you all tomorrow at our beloved Bosbaan.