Belgian Rowing Championships

As usual, last week-end of September is the Belgian Rowing Championship in what is called the long boats, that is to say fours and eights. We participated in both 4- and 4x.
4- was really though, no training in that combination and not used to row; 4x was better and wasn't it for the waves the umpire did manage to make for us from the 1.000m onwards, we could have raced a good 2.000m. We kept with the very strong boat of GRS for more than 750m but ... finished second again. Thanks to my clubmates, Kris, Leen and Guebli!

The Classic Club

Yesterday evening, mechoui and pancakes at the Classic Club. It is a quite unique club which owns oldtimers. Being a member allows you to use the cars for a certain amount of days a year. Once a month we meet at the clubhouse (l'Atelier) and there is always a surprise: it can be some cars to test, some pilots to meet, an art exhibition, ... Yesterday we had the pleasure to test the Alfa 159 and the GT. The second one is really a great car to drive!
You'll hear more from the Classic Club in the near future as I will drive one of the cars for the Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique in January 2006.

Mini Cooper

I've got a new toy: fun, nice, safe, ... a Mini Cooper! Not a brand new one but a one year old which looks like new! I really enjoy driving it and thank the sales person at the BMW garage for their wellcome and great sense of humor. By the way, one of them, Sébastien Delmotte, is a pilot on ... Mini!

Congratulations!

The Belgian rowers in Gifu really made it happen! Tim finishes 4th in the A final, Stijn and Christophe 6th and the lightweight quad, Christophe, Wouter, François and Justin take the silver medal! Last medal in rowing at World Championships goes back to Tampere in 1995! And what a race.
Melissa Bray reports on the FISA website: "Italy has dominated this event for the last three years and Filippo Mannucci, Luca Moncada and Daniele Gilardoni return as three-time defending champions, joined by Gardino Pellolio in bow. Italy took the lead over Austria and moved out to a boat length advantage by the 1,000 metre mark with Canada taking second. Italy continued to stay in front and it appeared that only a disaster would deny them of the gold. That disaster looked like it was coming in the form of Belgium. Sitting for most of the race in fourth the Belgians suddenly came alive and in the last 500 metres had swallowed up Canada and were challenging the Italians. Rating 40, Belgium ran out of race. Rating 36, Italy had held them off. Mannucci, Moncada and Gilardoni make it four consecutive World Champion titles. Pellolio makes it one. Belgium wins silver and Canada takes bronze."
Congratulations!

FISA World Rowing Championships GIFU

What a week for Belgian rowing for the moment: three boats entered, three boats in Final A and with some fantastic performances already.
The 2x, Christophe and Stijn qualified directly for the semi-finals and there finish 2nd, taking a fine qualifying place for the A final.
Tim, olympic finalist in Athens in 1x, rowed in the repechage only within a quarter of a second of breaking the world best time set by German's Marcel Hacker in 2002 and qualifying for the semi-final. In this semi, which was the fastest of the two, he came second, behind Olaf Tufte.
And finally the LM4x Justin, François, Woulter and Kristof qualified for the A final in breaking a 13 year world best time record!
We really look forward to the finals ...