Zambia rowing revival

Rowing in Zambia is on a revival track and playing host to the 2011 All Africa Games has become an added incentive.

Zambia has a history of rowing that extends back to the early 20th century, but rowing activity slumped in the nineties and has only recently seen a revival at the Mindolo Dam in Kitwe. As a member of the International Rowing Federation, FISA, the Zambian Amateur Rowing Association (ZARA) has participated in the past two FISA talent identification and training camps, and in March this year ZARA received a container of boats courtesy of the FISA Development Programme.

With the support of FISA and Rowing South Africa, ZARA is working to develop all aspects of the sport as they look towards the All Africa Games. Part of this is the training of officials to run and host regattas. As it takes a while for officials to train and qualify, this was identified as a priority area. Chair of Rowing South Africa’s Rowing Officials Commission and FISA International Official Wimpie du Plessis recently travelled to Zambia to run an officials training course.

At this stage the rowing revival is being driven from Kitwe, a town of 1.5 million people in Zambia’s copper belt. The Mindolo Dam, property of the Mopane Copper Mining Company, is a beautiful piece of water, big enough to accommodate a 1,700m course. Interest in rowing took a dive following the emptying of the Mindolo Dam. But rowing is now back on track with junior rowers from two schools and some senior rowers taking to the water. The rowing association is based at the Rokana Sailing and Boat Club, from where three dedicated committee members and coaches, Ben Mumba, Whiteson Silondwa and Patrick Akayombokwa train the rowers.

Five trainees completed the officials’ course, including a school sports master, an entrepreneur and an exercise instructor. The course included both a theoretical and practical component. The practical session included an actual regatta. This regatta was the second one since the boats arrived earlier this year. Senior rowers and rowers from local schools took part. This provided the training ground for the officials, who were rotated through the different stations to give them each a turn at performing the duties of control commission, the aligner, the starter and umpire, and the finish tower.

Given that most of the group had very little rowing experience and even less regatta experience, running the regatta was quite a challenge. Aligning boats when rowing terminology is all new becomes a huge challenge. Words like “backing” and “touching”, or talking about distances measured in boat lengths is like a speaking in a foreign language. It was not surprising one trainee asked, “Why can’t we just say ‘touch up two meters’ instead of ‘a canvas’?” It was also difficult to keep racing boats within the confines of the course as the crews were relatively novice, and there was no marked course to help.

This was the first step in the Zambian officials’ development. From here, the objective will be to secure their own set of equipment, lay a course on the dam and then practise, practise, practise.

Copy thanks to Colleen Orsmond

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