THE ATENEO Rowing Team (ART), a perennial competitor in the Varsity Boat Race (VBR), braved the shores of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia once again in the 2017 VBR held from October 3 to 7. As the lone Philippine team, the Blue Eagles were matched against heavy competition from Malaysia and Hong Kong, among others.
On their journey to a 7th place finish, the Blue and White’s unique culture of team spirit allowed them to persevere past their rigorous training schedules and routines, as well as insufficient support and lack of access to practice waters and boats. Composed of 30 dedicated athletes, ART remains the country’s sole collegiate-level rowing team.
Finding a family in the waters
The road less traveled is paved with its own challenges. But for ART, treading against the current of unchartered waters appears to be a reality they seem to embrace.
“For me, I understand why we’re not really much known. First off, it’s not a very popular sport here. Even the [Philippine Rowing Association (PRA) is kind of] underfunded. [Despite this,] our team, I’d say, is a pretty good team,” says senior and two-year veteran Kezia Kong.
In spite of the trials the team continues to face, it is the deep sense of family that ignites their fighting spirit. Being together as a team and supporting each other is what gets them through the motions, no matter how tough, “At the end of the day…we’re doing it for ourselves, for the school, and for the country,” Men’s Team Captain Larry Nepomuceno says.
Similarly, junior Joseph Lazaro, a two-year veteran of the team, attributes his successful 3rd place finish in his heat for the Men’s Single Sculls to the team’s unwavering support. He mentions how in the VBR, everyone wants to trade jerseys with them as they were always the ones beaming with charisma and expressing undying spirit. This spirit continued to prevail even in the last few moments of the game as the cheers and screams of Ateneo supporters never seemed to die down.
Kong says that one distinctive quality that the ART shows is that no one goes off to the race alone and similar no one comes back alone as well. “This is a team sport, even if you’re on a singles boat,” says Kong. This spirit made the ART popular in the VBR.
With members usually entering the team with an obscure idea of what is ahead of them, these athletes have since fostered a profound love for the sport, along with the ceaseless spirit of unity they have imbued.
Rowing past strong currents
As an expensive sport with relatively low collegiate following, the team inevitably faces challenges due to inadequate funding. Uniforms, airfare, boat repairs and rental fees all come out of the athletes’ own pockets. The PHP 80 training fee per row, however, dwarfs in comparison to new boats that are priced between PHP 700,000 to 2.6 million.
Additionally, the team’s daily rowing training located in La Mesa Dam in Greater Largo, Quezon City makes training even harder as the team has to set call time at 5:00AM in order to back before 10:00AM. Land training in Blue Eagle Gym (BEG) is scheduled at least twice a week from 5:00PM to 8:00PM. For the two months leading up to the Malaysian tournament, this is the team’s daily reality for six days out of the week.
While training in La Mesa Dam can be inconvenient, the team gets to train alongside the country’s rowing team who are willing to give their own advice on rowing strokes and the like. With the Philippine National Team’s (PNT) guidance supplementing the coaching instruction of former PNT member and current PNT coach Nicanor Jasmin, the Blue and Lady Eagles are aided by the best rowers of the country.
However, since he holds jobs in the military and the PNT, Jasmin can only visit rowing practice from time to time. Unable to lead the team in land training, he sends workout instructions for the team to follow instead. This deprived the team of a regular training venue since a new rule required that teams training in the covered courts must be accompanied by a coach. “You can’t train there [covered courts] without a coach so we couldn’t train there anymore,” Nepomuceno said. “We had to move to BEG and that’s difficult kasi mas complete ‘yung equipment sa [covered] courts.”
Unlike the rowing machines available to overall champions from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the team has difficulty securing access to proper training facilities and even a regular training schedule. Despite their varsity status, they are not exempt from the plight of unaccredited teams. “They don’t give us the easiest way to get into the gym,” Nepomuceno says.
The team’s 7th place finish is all the more impressive considering how they are at a disadvantage compared to their competition in terms of funding, training facilities, and access to boats and practice waters. A more developed rowing culture abroad also provides foreign teams more exposure to competitions.
While ART may not pack the stands, they willingly trade stadium lights for the scorching sun’s heat and find comfort in their teammates’ roars in the absence of a home crowd’s cheers.
