World Rowing Championships Postponed for 48 hours
The International Rowing Federation FISA today announced
that the start of the 2005 World Rowing Championships in Gifu,
Japan will be postponed for 48 hours due to typhoon Mawar.
The Championships will now take place over six days from 30
August to 4 September 2005. Typhoon Mawar will, according
to weather forecasts, touch the Japanese mainland tonight,
24 August, and create unrowable weather conditions through
to 28 August. The whole infrastructure of the regatta course
is now nearly all removed from the flood plain in expectation
of the high winds of up to 25 meters per second. All boats
are being removed and stored in permanent facilities. There
will be no rowing on the water for the more than 800 rowers
over the next three days but the organising committee has
put in place 114 rowing ergometers which will allow the rowers
to continue to train.
The regatta programme has been condensed from the usual eight
days to six days. The first two days of qualifying heats will
be compressed into one day, Tuesday, 30 August. The second
round called “repechages” will also be compressed
into one day on Wednesday, 31 August 2005. The final four
days of semi-finals and finals will, for the moment, be unchanged.
The regatta “Draw for Lanes” has also been moved
48 hours to 15:00 hrs on Sunday, 28 August.
FISA and the organisers have prepared for difficult conditions
after an unusually high number of typhoons hit Japan in the
months of July and August 2004. From 2000 to 2003, only two
typhoons were observed in July and two in August while last
year, 2004, a total of five typhoons during July and August
hit Japan. During the ten years before 2000, there were very
few, if any, typhoons in this period of time. FISA with the
organising committee published a contingency scenario document
to all teams well in advance to prepare them for this possibility
so there are no surprises here.
The event takes place at the Nagaragawa International Regatta
Course centrally situated at the very heart of Japan, two
hours from Tokyo, one from Osaka and 20 minutes from Nagoya
by bullet train. The 10 lane, buoyed fresh water course is
on the Nagara River and was first opened in 1998. This is
the first time since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics that an international
rowing event has been in Japan and the first time the World
Rowing Championships have been hosted by an Asia nation.
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