and a selection regatta are coming up. His
daily regime includes rising at four in the
morning and trains twice a day for one hour-and-a-half alongside able-bodied teammates
at the Canadian Sport Centre in Calgary, while
juggling work as a design engineer for an oil
and gas company.
“In the final preparations I will take a four-month leave of absence from work to train
five to seven hours a day, six days a week. It’s a
gruelling schedule,” Rand says. “Recently there
have been three male athletes vying for our
two seats. Competition is a great motivator
but nothing in sport is guaranteed so I take
nothing for granted.”
That’s what Brazil did at last year’s World
Rowing Championships with two of its
first-time adaptive crews not only winning
gold but also setting WorldBestTimes
in the women’s arms only single and the
mixed trunk and arms double. According
to Julio Noronha, technical director for the
Brazilian Rowing Federation, adaptive rowers
in Brazil face similar rigours in training and
evaluation as able-bodied rowers. “To form
the Paralympic team, we started working last
November. Every month the group assembles
and we measure the evolution of each athlete,
analysing the technical and physiological
points.”
23
Rowing federations around the world have
begun to put more emphasis on adaptive
rowing performance development, implementing coaches, training camps and
team administrators. But Brazil’s Noronha
believes that inclusion in the Paralympic
movement has its biggest impact on global
development, making rowing venues accessible and adapting rowing equipment to
facilitate the social inclusion of people with a
disability. “Rowing can be used for life quality
improvement,” states Noronha. ■ L.L.
The adaptive competition on the world stage
is still new enough to be unpredictable.
As Rowing Canada Aviron (RCA) adaptive
team coordinator Allison Sheard comments:
“Given the evolving stage of adaptive rowing,
I would not be surprised to see strong
competitors come from relatively
unexpected sources.”
Scott Rand of Canada rowing
with his crewmates in the leg,
trunk and arms mixed coxed
four.
