Broken Oars, Episode 26: Henley 2021 Wash Up - a podcast by brokenoarspodcast

from 2021-08-20T20:35:42

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As your genial hosts at Broken Oars Podcast continue their midsummer content blitz, we return to discuss Henley Royal Regatta 2021.

Here at Broken Oars, we've always believed that it's best to take the sport we love and its practitioners seriously and ourselves less so. Regular listeners will know that our tendency towards self-deprecation, flippancy and levity hasn't stopped us asking serious questions about rowing, rowers, the future of the sport both as an Olympic event and in this country as a participation sport, as well as the realities and impacts of athlete welfare, HP programmes and professionalism - all in the context of our belief that sport is and should remain for all.

In the light of Henley Royal Regatta's welcome return in 2021, we ask the question: is the world's most prestigious regatta and the aspirational pinnacle of the club sport in the UK in danger of becoming a pothunt for clubs within a 30-mile radius of its track?

We ask if HP programmes are asset-stripping talent from regional clubs, leaving them impoverished as a result; and what the implications of this, the regatta and its results this year are for a sport whose participation numbers have fallen off a cliff since 2016 and which is fighting for its Olympic life.

Tracing the historical reasons why the pyramid of British Rowing points to and funnels talent and resources towards a very specific geographic locale in the episode that might see any hope we ever had of joining the Establishment go up in smoke (probably), we make a passionate plea for the shining palace on the hill to remain an aspirational goal for all club rowers in the UK rather than it returning to being an Oz for the lucky few.

Strokeside? Bowside? This is why Broken Oars Podcast will never be allowed into Stewards.

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