Fellow competitors, coaches and clubs:

Welcome to the 72nd Women’s Eights HORR; it is at moments like this that we look back in awe and think of the thousands of strokes women have rowed in anger over the course in the history of the race. From its humble beginning in 1930 to becoming the biggest women’s rowing race in the world, the race is in good health because of you. Thank you.

Come the 3rd of March at 11am, all the hard worked winter fitness will be unleashed down the course by roughly 3,000 athletes. I can guarantee it is an amazing spectacle to witness and an even more amazing experience to be a part of. For most of you the journey will have started in the autumn with the promise and the planning, and then as the winter days shortened, your commitment to the cause would have been brutally tested. Some of your crew mates would have stepped away from the challenge; and as the days are lengthening and the snow has turned to rain, your head begins to lift and your mind turns to racing. On the day you will test what you have done, your promise will become fact and your hard work turned into victory. Bring on the race and unleash the animal within!

Guin Batten
Race Coordinator

Thanks to Annie Christiansen for the photo