Nicole van Wyk (Tuks Rowing ) won the HPC High Performer of the day award on the Roodeplaat Dam at the John Waugh Rock the Boat Regatta on Saturday.
Van Wyk is considered to be the next real deal in South African rowing. She has already represented South Africa at the World Junior Championships, the World Student Championships and the World Student Games.
According to the formula which is based on working out a percentage that compares the winning time of each crew to the world record of their respective age group or category, Van Wyk’s time of 8:10:90 in the lightweight women’s single sculls was considered to be the best. Van Wyk’s time equated to a percentage of 96.34%.
Shaun Keeling and Lawrence Brittain (Tuks/HPC) made sure that they were the best men’s crew with their time of6:44:19 (95.14%) which was also the second best performance on the day.
Last year’s bronze medallists at the World Championships, Kirsten McCann and Ursula Grobler (Tuks/HPC), set the third best overall performance of the day with a time of 7:16:00 (95.18%).
What made their result even more special is the fact that Grobler celebrated her 36th birthday on Saturday. She proved that, in spite of sometimes being called ‘tannie’ by younger rowers, getting older is no handicap.
The John Waugh Rock the Boat Regatta is a concept that was brought to life by James Thompson and Matthew Brittain, two of HPC’s Olympic gold medal winners at the 2012 Olympic Games.
The two Olympians are quite excited about how popular the regatta turned out to be. When it was started four years ago we had about 300 rowers competing. Saturday there were nearly 1000 rowers on the water, testing each other to the limit.
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