THE ATENEO Rowing Team has proven that UAAP glory is not the only way to gain recognition for the Blue-and-White.
What humbly started out as a group of Ateneo rowing enthusiasts in the Manila Boat Club back in the 1980s has now come a long way. Currently the only rowing varsity team in the collegiate level, the Blue Rowers have established a reputation not only for their alma mater, but also for their country.
“The team just completed a very successful rowing season in 2009,” Coach James Dee shares. Last October, in the ASEAN Varsity Boat Race in Putrajaya, Malaysia, the team garnered 5 podium finishes, 2 golds, 2 silvers and a bronze, to add to their 2008 feat in the same competition.
If that is not impressive enough, the men’s team notably trounced the National Team of Indonesia and Malaysia.
Rough spots
But the real story is not about the team’s victories, but the strength and determination behind their tournament victories. With insufficient funds, facilities and equipment, trainings mean work and toil for these athletes.
“Compared to other countries, our facilities (for lack of a better word) suck,” rower Ari Salud says. “One would even wonder how we are able to manage to be at the same level with other countries.”
As rowing equipment is generally expensive and only available internationally, the team has to set aside one to two years of their annual budget in order to acquire a set of oars or a rowing machine.
With the sport’s lack of popularity, the team has to tolerate the conditions of the only available regular training venue, the infamous Pasig River.
Some members have claimed to encounter dead animals alongside their rowing. Furthermore, the obsoleteness of Manila Boat Club’s equipments, which team member Liane Tan asserts to be just “package-taped boats,” is another sign of their unqualified equipment.
“There are many problems with the venue and time,” Cordero Pelaez adds. “Mahirap talaga ang conditioning kaya nagpupursige lang kami (Conditioning is hard so we persevere) just for living it up.”
Teamwork
As a sport that needs a strong sense of individual form and technique mastery, the team works twice as hard, with a strenuous land training program comprising of running, circuit training and intense erg rounds.
“Rowing is not about power per se,” Liane Tan says. “It’s about endurance, like long distance running coupled with form and technique.”
Come competition season, their training’s intensity elevates as they train every day of the week. Fortunately, the team is able to train in the National Team Training Center, at times with the National Team themselves, in La Mesa Dam with the support of the Philippine Rowing Association.
Even though all of their female members are graduating this year, the team sees this with optimism. “I believe that the team will still be intact,” Pelaez says. “We’re one big pool of rowers and the men’s team is still there [to train the new members].”
The team embarks on another competition in Singapore this coming June.
