Training Camp Temple-sur-Lot 2010: Breaking NEWS! Imperial College’s Materials Department has been outed as an undercover government operation to cease rowing activity in the London borough due to a reported (but surely not proven?) correlation between grade averages and rowing gold medal percentage scores (inversely proportional they say!). The Materials Department, revealed as an acronym for Mission Apocalyptic: Terminally Eradicate Rowers In All London Sectors, has long been questioned for it’s seemingly fruitless work and mystifyingly consistent stream of funding. The ring of athleteists have been working in unsolicited labs creating down-scaled volcanoes and calculating ash cloud distributions. The crack team were foiled last week as their plot came to a head following a series of incidents in an attempt to prevent ICBC’s training camp from going ahead.
In a continued effort to stop the rowers from traveling, MATERIALS made a phone call impersonating second-in-command coach Stuart Whitelaw. “Whitelaw” (who had arrived at camp a day earlier with the trailer) informed the crews that the rooms at Temple had been sold to Headington School girls who could not get flights out of France. “Errr…Irrelevant! To the tunnel!” A youth hostel was booked at Limoges and ICBC arrived in staggered formation: mini-bus at 01:30, Chewymobile at 02:30 (STRAIGHT-LINE IT!) and the MMS people carrier at 04:00 (they took the ferry). Will Todd battled on to Bordeaux, like a hero.
The next day ICBC descended upon camp. Luckily the day wasted in travelling was well spent by the already arrived coaches/rowers who had unloaded and rigged all the boats. Oh wait, no, they didn’t actually unload or rig anything. MATERIALS were still making desperate attempts at foiling training camp and had switched control over to their French counterparts (le département des matériaux). Coach Stu Whitelaw was persuaded into a stranger’s car with the promise of sweets and was force-fed volcano lava rendering him incapacitated for the next five days. He was quarantined on the spot. Cancelled flights of coaches Seb Pearce, Brian Steele and Ross Smitheman meant camp control fell to boat house manager James Blackley and boat man Paul Cobbett until the others could make their way by ferry.
While volcano victims spent their days in earnest at the EasyJet desk, training camp 2010 was ok to go. Distances were judged by Seb “10% more is better” Pearce and by day three silence pervaded the dining hall. The random crew generator was heated up and POD found herself in the bow seat of a coxless four where she would remain for 15 consecutive outings, before being relieved of duty into the stern.
The injury count was lower than previous years with the women’s squad faring the worst. Ro Smith injured her back while dead-lifting a few days before camp and Christina Matteotti-totti suffered from a recurring wrist problem. Kat Flatoway could not find a comfortable position in her single and spent the first half of the week slashing her calves on the slides, and the second half bruising her shins off the rigger. It was eventually a creaky achilles tendon which stopped the Beast on the final day of camp much to POD’s despair who was dispatched back to the bow seat of the 4-. Will Todd spent most of camp suffering from extreme hotness.
Paddy Hudson, starving from trying to make weight for BUCS decided to blow off some steam by liberating a launch and tearing up and down the river before going to bed. The facility manager was far from impressed and in an act of humble regret Hudson offered up a bottle of pastis to the non-alcohol-drinking Frenchman; shunned. On the final night of camp Hudson was witnessed passing out due to “hunger” in the Chateau bathroom and had to be smuggled back to his room. It suddenly occurred to Hudson that a swim might be in order and so he dove straight into the river, au naturel. A blood-stained Hudson was dragged out of the two foot shallow rocky riverside and plasters were liberally applied before tucking him in to bed. There’s always one (and his name is Paddy).
Inspired, Chewy & Charlie created the masterpiece that was The Tampon-sur-Lot Hat, presented to the twat of the day; firstly to Finlay McWin for falling out of a 4+ and losing his room key, to Simon Steele for swimming across the river and losing his boxers in the process and then to Chewy (the plan had somewhat back-fired at this point) for falling out of her own single. The final recipient (due to the winner not returning said hat) went to Will Todd, for no particular reason other than he gets freaked out by tampons. This is just one example of many highlighting the benefits of having a women’s squad.
Dom Meyrick-Cole made his return to rowing after a long injury period over the winter. Sadly the comeback only lasted a couple of outings but despite his fragile knee injury Meyrick-Cole had enough flexibility to repeatedly attempt headstands in a single, not his own single (might get damaged), but POD’s ex-favourite “club” single IMP 112 (Todd: “There are no women’s boats, just club boats.”). Understandably there were attempts on Meyrick-Cole’s life whilst in mid-handstand, but the only casualty was a submerged & rigger-bent 112. (Woe betide the fool that touches the new favourite: IMP 111, POD will hunt you down). Meyrick-Cole finished the week off by successfully snapping one of Tom Pearson’s blades in half; “I was making a tit out of myself.” No change there then.
The women were much more sophisticated in their downtime and enjoyed the fruits of France on the riverbank while sipping champagne, ingeniously cooled under the water by strapping them to boat ties. Unfortunately 99c champagne doesn’t taste the best, but it has the same universal alcoholic effect as POD later discovered face down in an empty water fountain on the way to dinner. Dehydration and over-exposure to sun were the primary factors, obviously.
As the mileage racked up delirium started to set in. After the first of two 2km pieces seat 5 Jonny Rankin could be heard screaming to the coaches in the timing launch: “THERE’S A HEAD IN THE RIVER!” “What?!” “THERE’S A HUMAN HEAD IN THE RIVER… A FLOATING HEAD!...WITHOUT A BODY!” It wasn’t the first time somebody had lost the head on camp (POD can joke because it turned out not to be a head; but thanks for judging). The gendarmes were called in; “IL YA UNE TÊTE DANS LA FLEUVE!” and the river was searched. Conclusion: there are big-mo-fo hairy rats in the river of similar appearance to a decapitated human head. Just a head’s up.
By the end of the week the airlines realized how much money they were losing and downgraded their safety limits. The flight ban was lifted allowing driving-illiterate rowers to fly home. Expert volcanologist Professor Boombastic (he's fantastic) concluded that the volcano was “fiddled with to a degree of unparalleled ingenuity”. The ash cloud was engineered to settle over London and was precisely timed to disrupt ICBC training camp flights.
Copies of “Metallurgical and Materials Transactions” were found scattered around the crater site, as well as several burnt out copies of Rowing & Regatta. A photograph of Steve Trapmore at the height of his career in 2000 was found mounted on the bullseye of a dartboard target and taken away for DNA analysis. This evidence led to the arrest of several high profile Imperial professors and the closure of the underground volcanic labs. Bundled into the back of a police car, the prime suspect, a disgruntled ex-IC rower, was heard screaming “Not even a natural disaster can stop them rowing, they’re all crazy, CRAZY! I’ve wasted my life!” It is thought that the Materials Department will remain open and become as mundane as was originally suspected by outsiders.
After nearly ten days of fighting off bald Belarussian kayakers, stampeding to the dessert tray, air-horning other rowers attempting racing starts: “Attention HONK HONK er… Go! Damn you IC!”, facial hair experiments and general ICBC banter, it was time to leave. The Chewymobile was so keen to leave that it drove through the night stopping only in Paris for some 4am sightseeing. Congratulations are due to challenge winner Josh Barker who went the distance by consuming 50 brioche on the journey back (one every 15 minutes).
POD cannot express how very sad she is that camp is over. However, she is comforted by the fact that volcano-permitting, there will be racing for the students at BUCS and the non-students at “Wallingford” (Dorney) this weekend. Thanks to the coaches for organizing camp and to our heroic drivers for getting us there and back
Christina Duffy
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