2017 Cambridge Town Cup & North Island Club Championships
For the first time, two regattas will be held at Lake Karapiro on the same weekend. The Cambridge Town Cup, running Friday 27th through Sunday 29th, is comprised of age group events while the North Island Club Championships, running Saturday 28th through Monday 30th, is comprised of all club events. Both will be run on the 2000m course in the traditional rowing regatta format and will see over 1800 competitors take to the water over the four days of racing.
Racing on the first day [draft race schedule here] will be the heats of the age group events, starting at 9:00am and finishing at 5:06pm that afternoon.
The Saturday will be heats of the club events and a small number of finals for the age groups events, run over a full day of racing starting at 7:00am and carrying through to 6:08pm.
Sunday will see the repechages and sem-finals of the club events and the majority of the finals for the age group events, run over another full day.
The Monday will hold all the finals for the club events, starting at 7:30am and concluding at 3:10pm, and will see medals awarded to the fastest crews in the North Island (all times are weather dependent and subject to change).
Racing over the first 3 days will be run 4 minutes apart, with an extra minute added for the North Island title races on the final day. The 94 events being contested over the two regattas will comprise 266 heats, 64 Repechages, 28 Semi-Finals, and 135 finals, totaling 493 races. Sunday's finals are a mix of straight finals and A and B Finals for the events with greater entries.
Despite still accepting supplementary entries (closing Tuesday), over 1,800 athletes from 52 different competing organisations (Clubs, schools and a few high performance teams) are already registered to compete in 1749 crews.
The North Island Club Championships also doubles as Rowing New Zealand's National Small Boat Regatta which will see the nations best rowers contest automatic positions at the national selection trials through a win in the Open 1x or 2- events. With a number of top rowers from the Rio Olympic cycle taking a year off, you can expect some interesting racing as new faces step up to take these positions and stake their claim as we enter the new, Tokyo Olympic cycle.