Eleven and a half months ago at the U19 worlds the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium was on its absolutely worst behaviour. Torrential rain, wind (lots of wind), hail, incredibly bumpy water, cancelled rowing sessions and a programme squeezed in between storms. Olympians all over the world started planning for the worst.
Now, however, we have docile Marnes. Calm water, a mild tailwind breeze, great rowing conditions and a general air of “storms, what storms?” The venue is playing surprisingly nice with the class of Paris 2024.
The forecast does include a threat of brief thunderstorms next Wednesday and Thursday, which might affect the first few finals, but it seems to be changing rapidly and even with thunder looming the wind forecast is average to low which is half the battle. Racing and training can stop, compress or be postponed to allow for thunder and lightning, but it’s the major wind which causes many more issues.
It helps that the programme at an Olympics is so short, leaving plenty of time to tweak timings in an emergency. And just to be certain, there are spare days at the end of the rowing week in case they are needed before the venue switches over to flat-water canoe-kayak. On the flip side we look set to get every possible direction of wind at some point throughout the eight days of rowing, albeit not too strong, and sheltered by the many trees around this country-park style course. It’s what Strathclyde Park aims for but doesn’t quite achieve, and has a lot in common with Brive-La-Gaillarde. The beach area isn’t on the main lake but slightly to the south of the boathouse, on an unconnected pond which will be open for spectators to try out rowing and canoeing during the Games.
What about the rest? The grandstands, boathouse and other infrastructure look down onto the bowl of a course from above, with plenty of space and lots of room for warm-up areas for both rowers and canoeists/kayakers. The wildwater canoeing (aka slalom) course is just between the entry road and the main boathouse area, with its own toweringly steep grandstand, while the rowing course stretches away to the west from the entrances. There’s masses of space for boats and rigging, and the roof of the boathouse, dug back into the hillside in a typical European style, has mini pavilions for each national federation, and space for athletes to see races coming towards them while they warm up on ergs and bikes.
