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San Francisco Chronicle
5 days ago
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
Rowers revel in beach sprints in the run-up to LA's 2028 Olympics
LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — It's a beach run, a coastal row and a music party rolled into one, and it's about to become an Olympic event. On a sunny Southern California morning, nearly two dozen athletes gathered to try their hand at beach sprints at a camp run by USRowing in Long Beach, not far from where the inaugural Olympic races will be held in 2028. Many were long-time flatwater rowers who wanted to take a shot at something new. Others were already hooked on the quick-paced and unpredictable race format and have been training with an eye on LA28. Two at a time, athletes run to the waterline, hop in a boat, row a slalom course, then turn around and return to shore to jump out and dash across the sand to hit a finish-line buzzer — all in about three minutes. "You don't just have to be a good rower — you also have to be a good athlete, and what that means is you've got to be able to be dynamic and adapt to whatever Mother Nature throws at you," said Maurice Scott, a long-time rower from Philadelphia who moved to Long Beach to prepare for the Olympics. The next summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles and nearby cities. Interest in beach sprints has risen since the International Olympic Committee announced its inclusion, especially since the games will no longer feature a lightweight rowing category popular among smaller athletes. Rowing officials developed the beach sprint format a little over a decade ago hoping to engage spectators in a sport that's otherwise removed from people watching from the shore. A standard 2,000 meter-flatwater race is typically only visible closer to the finish line. In beach sprints, athletes compete close to the crowds in a dynamic and much shorter race that fans can easily track from the sand. Guin Batten, chair of World Rowing's coastal commission, said the vision is to have a fun, lively event on the beach where spectators can listen to good music, be close to the action and follow their favorite athletes. The entire event runs just an hour. 'It's knockout. It's chaotic,' said Batten, an Olympic rower who helped develop the format. 'Until you cross a finish line, anyone can win that race.' Many traditional flatwater rowers accustomed to steady strokes on calm waterways have no interest in the ups and downs of wind and waves. But other long-time rowers are hooked. Christine Cavallo, a beach sprinter on the U.S. national team, said she loves the unpredictability of the waves, which can humble even the most incredible athletes. 'You could be the best rower in the world and get flipped by the wave," Cavallo said. Coastal rowing has long been popular throughout the world but different cultures have used different boats and rules. Part of the appeal of beach sprints is the boat has been standardized and is provided at competitions, which makes it easier for more athletes to try it. The first major international beach sprints competition was at the 2015 Mediterranean Beach Games in Italy. Head of the Charles, known for its yearly October flatwater regatta in Massachusetts, hosted its first beach sprints event in July. About 100 rowers, twice as many as expected, participated, said Brendan Mulvey, race director. Since the Olympic announcement, Tom Pattichis, British Rowing's head coach for beach sprints, said he now has athletes training full-time in the event. Meanwhile, Marc Oria, the USA Beach Sprint head coach, said camps in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Long Beach aim to bring the race to long-time rowers and others who haven't tried it. Athletes find it exhilarating because it requires them to be agile and adaptive as well as superb rowers, he said. 'It's growing exponentially in the last four years all around the world,' Oria said. 'Our goal for U.S. rowing is to create more events, more opportunities, and to create a good pipeline for 2028.' At the camp in Long Beach, competitors included a teacher, an Olympic rower, a marketing professional who began rowing a few weeks earlier and a high school senior. 'I tried it and I really loved it, so I came back,' said Bridgette Hanson, a 17-year-old rower from Arizona who raced in beach sprints for the first time this year in Florida. 'It requires a lot more brute force.' John Wojtkiewicz, coach of the Long Beach Coastal Team, called out to racers to help guide them through the course. He said he's eager to see how the Olympic venue is set up and hopes spectators can get a good view like they do at surfing events. 'What is great about the beach sprint — and this may have helped its development — is you can watch the entire race,' Wojtkiewicz said. "Anything can happen.'
Winnipeg Free Press
5 days ago
- Sport
- Winnipeg Free Press
Rowers revel in beach sprints in the run-up to LA's 2028 Olympics
LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — It's a beach run, a coastal row and a music party rolled into one, and it's about to become an Olympic event. On a sunny Southern California morning, nearly two dozen athletes gathered to try their hand at beach sprints at a camp run by USRowing in Long Beach, not far from where the inaugural Olympic races will be held in 2028. Many were long-time flatwater rowers who wanted to take a shot at something new. Others were already hooked on the quick-paced and unpredictable race format and have been training with an eye on LA28. Two at a time, athletes run to the waterline, hop in a boat, row a slalom course, then turn around and return to shore to jump out and dash across the sand to hit a finish-line buzzer — all in about three minutes. 'You don't just have to be a good rower — you also have to be a good athlete, and what that means is you've got to be able to be dynamic and adapt to whatever Mother Nature throws at you,' said Maurice Scott, a long-time rower from Philadelphia who moved to Long Beach to prepare for the Olympics. The next summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles and nearby cities. Interest in beach sprints has risen since the International Olympic Committee announced its inclusion, especially since the games will no longer feature a lightweight rowing category popular among smaller athletes. Rowing officials developed the beach sprint format a little over a decade ago hoping to engage spectators in a sport that's otherwise removed from people watching from the shore. A standard 2,000 meter-flatwater race is typically only visible closer to the finish line. In beach sprints, athletes compete close to the crowds in a dynamic and much shorter race that fans can easily track from the sand. Guin Batten, chair of World Rowing's coastal commission, said the vision is to have a fun, lively event on the beach where spectators can listen to good music, be close to the action and follow their favorite athletes. The entire event runs just an hour. 'It's knockout. It's chaotic,' said Batten, an Olympic rower who helped develop the format. 'Until you cross a finish line, anyone can win that race.' Many traditional flatwater rowers accustomed to steady strokes on calm waterways have no interest in the ups and downs of wind and waves. But other long-time rowers are hooked. Christine Cavallo, a beach sprinter on the U.S. national team, said she loves the unpredictability of the waves, which can humble even the most incredible athletes. 'You could be the best rower in the world and get flipped by the wave,' Cavallo said. Coastal rowing has long been popular throughout the world but different cultures have used different boats and rules. Part of the appeal of beach sprints is the boat has been standardized and is provided at competitions, which makes it easier for more athletes to try it. The first major international beach sprints competition was at the 2015 Mediterranean Beach Games in Italy. Head of the Charles, known for its yearly October flatwater regatta in Massachusetts, hosted its first beach sprints event in July. About 100 rowers, twice as many as expected, participated, said Brendan Mulvey, race director. Since the Olympic announcement, Tom Pattichis, British Rowing's head coach for beach sprints, said he now has athletes training full-time in the event. Meanwhile, Marc Oria, the USA Beach Sprint head coach, said camps in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Long Beach aim to bring the race to long-time rowers and others who haven't tried it. Athletes find it exhilarating because it requires them to be agile and adaptive as well as superb rowers, he said. Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. 'It's growing exponentially in the last four years all around the world,' Oria said. 'Our goal for U.S. rowing is to create more events, more opportunities, and to create a good pipeline for 2028.' At the camp in Long Beach, competitors included a teacher, an Olympic rower, a marketing professional who began rowing a few weeks earlier and a high school senior. 'I tried it and I really loved it, so I came back,' said Bridgette Hanson, a 17-year-old rower from Arizona who raced in beach sprints for the first time this year in Florida. 'It requires a lot more brute force.' John Wojtkiewicz, coach of the Long Beach Coastal Team, called out to racers to help guide them through the course. He said he's eager to see how the Olympic venue is set up and hopes spectators can get a good view like they do at surfing events. 'What is great about the beach sprint — and this may have helped its development — is you can watch the entire race,' Wojtkiewicz said. 'Anything can happen.'
Telegraph
01-06-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Welcome to the Desperation Cup Final: Oldham and Southend fight for big league return ticket
According to Maurice Scott, the chair of the Oldham Athletic Supporters Foundation, when his team face Southend United in the National League play-off at Wembley on Sunday, the game should have a different name. 'It's almost the Desperation Cup Final,' he says. 'I know we're desperate to get back. They must be, too. Everyone talks about the Championship play-off being so huge economically. But winning this would be absolutely enormous for both of us. It's not just financial, though it is massive with things like being able to reinstate the club's academy. More, it's about your club's relevance.' He has a point. This is the collision of two clubs of long and distinguished competitive history driven out of the Football League by some of the worst examples of financial mismanagement in the game. In 2021, Southend United, after 101 years of league membership, found themselves evicted to the fifth tier in a flurry of winding-up orders and unpaid bills, of players without wages and fans in mutinous despair. A year later they were joined by Oldham, founder members of the Premier League, a club that had been eviscerated by an owner who got through managers at a rate their neighbours Manchester City were winning trophies, firing 10 in four years. These two were the poster boys for self-destruction, once thriving community assets, driven by scandalous directorial incompetence to the very lip of extinction. And now they are back, infused with optimism, both with a chance of a return to where they believe they belong. 'This feels like the shot,' says James Nottage, who has followed Southend since he was a teenager, once leading a pitch invasion at Roots Hall after victory in the League Two play-off semi-final in 2015. 'At the moment we can say we are a Football League club that's fallen on bad times. One more season and that's no longer credible. We'll become a non-league operation.' The game is that big and, for both, this match represents the light at the end of a very long tunnel. When the football agent Abdallah Lemsagam bought Oldham in 2018, his plan was to use the club as a shop window for overseas talent, who could be sold on at a profit. But the application of his idea was completely chaotic. There was a hint how successful it might be from the off, when the manager John Sheridan arrived back from the first closed season under new ownership to find the training ground filled with players he had never seen or heard of. Lemsagam's brother was installed as director of football, a man who reckoned his knowledge far superior to any mere manager. Sheridan was the first of many to go; Paul Scholes lasted seven games before tiring of the interference, Harry Kewell and David Unsworth not much longer. Staffed with players entirely inappropriate for League One and Two, the team tumbled through the divisions, its descent accompanied by a flurry of unpaid bills, winding up orders from HMRC and supporter boycotts. It was not until they were ensconced in the National League that Lemsagam ended his disastrous experiment, selling the club in 2022 on to local businessman Frank Rothwell, a man whom the previous year at the age of 70 had demonstrated his determination by becoming the oldest person to row single-handed across the Atlantic. Rothwell had no history as a fan of the club. But he is a huge supporter of the town of Oldham and immediately saw them as a standard-bearer for the community. 'Let's get people being proud of Oldham again, talking about the club in the chippy, at school,' he said when taking control, while wearing his trademark flat cap. 'I want people to feel like they own the football club.' In with the away fans 🏟 Oldham Athletic owner Frank Rothwell watching his side face Chesterfield alongside the Latics supporters 🦉 — Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) August 19, 2023 It took a couple of seasons, but, under the stewardship of chief executive Darren Royle, son of the club's greatest manager Joe, stability has been restored. Micky Mellon has been the club's longest serving manager for more than a decade. If not quite at the levels applied in the past couple of seasons at Wrexham and Stockport, in the attempt to regain league status, money has been thrown at bringing in players of proper experience. And, with things now settled off the pitch, the fans have flooded back. 'We're like rebels without a cause now,' says Scott. 'Everyone is pulling in the right direction. Now we need to get over this final hurdle.' At Southend, things were just as woeful. Under the ownership of Ron Martin, who took over in 1998, the place stuttered and staggered on for a couple of decades before becoming mired in misery. Martin, a property developer, had promised a new stadium and new training ground. But his plans were about as authentic as his hairline and while his coiffure bloomed, the club wilted. Between 2009 and when he finally relinquished control in 2024, the club swerved 18 winding-up petitions, most from HMRC over unpaid taxes. 'The depths we plunged ethically and financially was reflected in the amount of jeopardy on the pitch,' says Nottage. 'The number of times judges said they only stayed the winding-up orders because this was a football club and a community asset... ' Only You x SUFC 🦐 — Southend United FC (@SUFCRootsHall) May 30, 2025 Now under new Australian ownership, and with the club legend Kevin Maher (who also played 31 games for Oldham in 2008-09 season) in the dugout, there is a sense of hope at Roots Hall. Such is the feeling of revival in both clubs, an attendance record will be set for a non-league match when more than 50,000 fans make their way to Wembley. Though the crowd could have been even bigger. Restrictions were put on the capacity because engineering work means Wembley Park station will be closed on the day. Initially, only 40,000 seats were made available. Until the Oldham Supporters Federation and its Southend counterpart got to work, that is. 'We combined in lobbying. It worked well,' says Scott. 'I think everybody who wants to go can go now. Certainly for us, a lot of people who felt estranged by the Lemsagam times are coming back. No wonder, it's our first visit to Wembley since the 1994 FA Cup semi-final.' The decision to close Wembley Park was taken back in February. And in fairness to Transport for London, a glance at the National League table then would not have suggested the two best-supported clubs in the division would be meeting. In truth both are fortunate that the National League play-off system gives a chance to those who finish as low as seventh in the table. Neither had distinguished seasons: Southend finished 15 points behind Forest Green Rovers, whom they beat in the semi-final, while Oldham were 23 points adrift of their opponents York City. For both, everything seems to be coming together at the season's sharp end. 'We were pretty hopeless up to the play-offs, then we got senior players back who had barely played for us this year,' says Scott. Players like the Cameroonian centre-back Manny Monthé, or Corry Evans, the seasoned Northern Ireland international midfielder. Scott added: 'I'm optimistic. Our captain Tom Conlon lifted a play-off trophy for Port Vale, our manager did it with Tranmere. None of them will be intimidated by Wembley. They will know exactly what to do.' Meanwhile, it is an optimism shared in Essex. 'I don't know if we're any good,' says Nottage. 'But this just feels right. We've sorted the off-field. Now it's time for the on-field. Though honestly, I daren't even think about what it will mean if we lose. No, I'm not going to go there.'
