Roeipraet 2-2019

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De regio Eindhoven is een internationale hotspot aan het worden en dat merken we ook bij Beatrix. Meer en meer expats melden zich aan als lid en weten hun weg te vinden. Eén van hen is Rachael Davies, die graag bereid was om een aantal vragen van Robin Sterk te beantwoorden. Rachael, what can you tell us about your rowing back- ground? “I HAD A GREAT WELCOME AT BEATRIX” RACHAEL DAVIES

I learnt to row when I was 15 in a small market town in En- gland, called Bedford. That was after I had tried all the other available sports and been dreadful at all of them because I am so badly coordinated! Trying so many other sports and getting beaten by my two younger sisters for years at swimming defi- nitely increased my determination to do well at rowing though. In Bedford we only had 2.3k of rowable water, on a small river

called the Great Ouse. From Bedford I went to London to study Biology at univer- sity, where I took rowing more seriously. I was very lucky to be able to live above my college boat club on the Thames for two years. The Thames is a bit different to the Eindhovens Kanaal and big headwinds, strong tides and huge waves sui- ted my brute force and poor technique perfectly! After university I moved to one

of the London clubs, Tideway Scul- lers School, where I rowed for several years with a couple of breaks. Before moving to Eindhoven I lived in Chicago, where I did a bit of single sculling in the summer… in the winter it gets much too cold and everything freezes over. Another less pleasant hazard of Chicago rowing was that we would occasionally find dead bo- dies in the water...

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