Sanctioning
This New Zealand Secondary Schools Rowing Association regatta is sanctioned by the New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council.
* this year there are 2 exhibition events added to the usual 50 events
Despite a foggy start on Saturday a great regatta was completed in otherwise excellent conditions. Hamilton Boys High School won the Derbyshire Shield, for Champion North Island School, with 57 points. St Peters School and Waikato Diocesan School shared second place on 33 points.
Hamilton Boys High School also won the Boys Under-18 Eights and Waikato Diocesan School won the Girls Under-18 Eights. Hamilton Boys had the largest medal haul at the regatta (8 gold, 5 silver, 2 bronze) but 45 other schools also collected medals. The standard of competiton was very high and the 12 pennant events (those with unrestricted entry i.e. U18 non-novice, non-lightweight) were shared between 9 different schools (HAMB, WHAK, and WKDS each won 2 events).
We can anticipate seeing a lot of the crews again at the 2014 Aon Maadi regatta. And we can also expect to seeing many of them appear on the Maadi medal dais!
Full results are available on the rowIT website: www.rowit.co.nz/results/niss2014.
Day sheets are now available online. You can filter the online version to give you a school-specific day sheet (click the cog icon at the top of the table). Hard copy day sheets can be obtained at the lake. They're free if you purchase a programme of events or have a coach ID, otherwise can be obtained for a gold coin donation.
* Event 45 currently shows as a time trial instead of heats. This is due to the number of entries received. However, if there are some scratchings this event may end up with heats.
There was a serious safety incident on Friday when a pupil decided it was a good idea to swim out onto the course while a race was underway.
Fortunately, though more through good luck than anything else, the pupil did not get mown down by a four or injured by its blades. However, it was a very close call and not something that should have ever happened. The incident can be put down to a lapse in judgement from a young rower; compounded by more poor judgement from those who were egging the pupil on.
Everybody is reminded the rowing course is off-limits during racing; and for good reason. If you see somebody doing something stupid then please don't be afraid to intervene or, at the very least, find an Official to intervene.
The pupil has been expelled from the regatta by their school and sent home.
So far this regatta a handful of crews have been excluded from races or results after it was discovered they had non-notified or illegal crew changes. Some of these were picked up during the random checks that are being conducted at the start. Others were due to schools submitting illegal crew changes. A few were due to schools mixing their crews up.
Schools must be familiar with the Substitution Rule and if you have more than one crew entered in an event it is vital you know which bow number belongs to which crew. Don't guess; check!
Officials are taking a more proactive approach today and they will be conducting additional random checks in the boat park to try and catch crews while they still have time to submit a change. Hopefully we will not see any crews picked up at the start today. There is no excuse for being slack with paperwork!
A failure to weigh in on time (or to weigh in at all) cost several crews their chance to race and resulted in additional exclusions. In some cases this was related to the above issue with non-notified crew changes e.g. because the coach thought they could make a change that they actually could not make they sent the wrong coxswain along and the correct coxswain missed their weigh-in window. Coxswains are not interchangeable!
One coxswain also got caught out by the fact U18 events have a different weight limit than other events. The coxswain took the deadweight they used for the 50kg limit to the race and so was well underweight compared with the 55kg limit they should have met.
100% of South Island schools attended the scheduled safety briefing and no second chances were required or available. North Island schools only managed about 60% attendance at their initial safety briefing and were lucky the Chief Umpire was prepared to make further briefings. North Island schools will need to do far better than that when heading to Maadi!
A quad was disqualified when it was discovered the crew had undone their heel restraints on the water. The crew had been checked going on the water and was compliant. A second check later found the change. Heel restraints form an important part of a boat's safety system and removing them can jeopardise the crew's ability to safely exit the boat in an emergency.
Schools need to be mindful the safety system is in place for protection of pupils and should not be thought of as an inconvenience to be circumvented. Breaches of the safety system lead to disqualification.
On Saturday a crew from STAN paid much more dearly for not having proper heel restraints. Their safety breach lead to disqualification in a final and loss of silver medals.
While North Island schools are competing on Lake Karapiro for recognition as the best the North Island has to offer their South Island counter-parts will be do the same thing up at the 2014 Meridian South Island Champs on Lake Ruataniwha. Keep a watch on both regattas for indicators of who may claim the top spot at Maadi!
1952 pupils (excluding reserves) from 94 schools entered in 5247 seats in 1487 crews. 315 races will be required to complete the regatta and find the winners of all 52 events.
Because NISSC will bring together nearly 2000 pupils from around the North Island it's important schools be aware there is a concern about measles. To raise awareness the Ministry of Health has provided some brief advice [pdf 42KB] for schools to take on board.
Due to some scratchings in event 45 (Girls U16 2X) it will no longer be necessary to time trial this event and there will be heats instead.
The tent site ballot has now been conducted and the site allocation is available for download (.pdf [81KB]). All sites are clearly marked:
The Schools Committee has approved a request from the Regatta Committee to include U15 Octuples as exhibition events at the regatta. The octuples will appear in the programme as events 44A (girls) and 46A (boys). The Octuples will be added to the full Championships Programme of Events from 2015 onwards.
Note: exhibition events are not Championships events so not eligible for medals (see Reg 6.4.D).
We take this opportunity to remind Members who have entered lightweight rowers in both lightweight events that NZSSRA Rules require crews to weigh in before EACH event (Rule 12). Pupils cannot weigh-in once for both events. This is different from coxswains but coxswains can be check-weighed at any time whereas lightweights cannot.
As we have been repeatedly assured all lightweights at our regattas are genuine lightweights and naturally below the weight limits the Rule requirements should present no challenges with respect to making weight. An athlete who has to avoid re-hydrating and eating between events in order to make weight for both events should not be racing lightweight.
Due to the scale of entries received for this regatta it has had entry limits in place for many seasons now. The usual limit of 2 crews-per-school-per-event will apply. The limit applies to all events other than eights.
Schools must also be aware the compressed nature of this regatta means there should be no expectation any pupil who is entered in more than one event will have sufficient time available to compete in all of those events. There is only enough time to be able to hold semi-finals for the most heavily entered events and this brings together events that might usually be spread well apart during heats and finals.
Note: entry limits do not apply to supplementary entries
The NZSSSC School Team Eligibility criteria were revised with effect from 2012 and then tweaked for rowing at NZSSRA's 2013 AGM. An updated article about the NZSSSC School Team Eligibility criteria is available to help members assess whether or not each of their pupils is considered new to their school. Schools are limited to 3 "new" pupils in an eight and 1 "new" pupil in other boats ("new" pupils are those who've swapped schools or come from overseas and looks back over the past 2 years).
1832 pupils (excluding reserves) from 89 schools entered in 4595 seats in 1299 crews. 295 races were required to complete the regatta and find the winners of all 50 events.
SanctioningThis New Zealand Secondary Schools Rowing Association regatta is sanctioned by the New Zealand Secondary Schools Sports Council.
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