Lightweights that are heavyweights.

[Chad Williams]

Would you call 2 things "so many".

Boths issues that I dislike about this sport come under the same bracket of "dishonesty".

Is it so wrong to to be oppesed to something like that?

[row4life]

Would you call 2 things "so many".

Boths issues that I dislike about this sport come under the same bracket of "dishonesty".

Is it so wrong to to be oppesed to something like that?

You're such a f'in hypocrite!!! You have said that you used to be a Boxer, did you not? How dishonest is it for a boxer to come in 8 to 10 lbs heavier than his/her weigh-in from the night before? Happens all the time. I'm sure you used to do it. Or is that the reason you got out of boxing? I'm sure it is.

The rules stand as they are. Any male weighing in less that 165lbs can (and will) compete as a lightweight. There isn't any dishonesty about it.

Get a life!

[Chad Williams]

Another worthy contribution from the oh so intelligent row4life.

Boxing is boxing, rowing is rowing. We are talking about rowing not boxing. If we where talking about boxing I would then inform you of my thoughts on the current weight limits and there rules for making them.

[tennstrike]

Boxing is boxing, rowing is rowing.

Yes, and the weigh in procedures are pretty much the same for the two and pretty much the same for wrestling. You are defined as a competitor by what you race as, or fight as, or wrestle as, not what you weigh five days before the event.

I am at a loss to understand a rationale for your position. In your first post you express an opinion that Lightweights should not even be able to post times on the rankings. Why? Because they might post a time when they weighed 168? Who cares? How could what a 166 pound guy posts for his 2K impact you in any way.

You are good entertainment, however, Chad. I'll give you that.

[Jim Barry]

Becz,


Yes, internationally the world championships added LW rowing in 1974, but as a sport it's been contested since 1917 when Canada's Joe Wright Sr, a huge man (240lbs) and a successful rower himself, introduced the novel idea to the University of Pennsylvania where he coached. Since 1946 the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) has held LW championships.

[johnlvs2run]

Something needs to be done to stop people training as Heavyweight and racing as Lightweight. Maybe something like weighing in after an event rather than before.

Yes I agree completely.

There was a guy who bragged on the forum a few years ago about weighing in the night before a race in Boston.

Then he was 180 pounds by the time of the race and got credited with a new world record for lightweights. This even though he was 15 pounds OVER the weight limit for lightweights.

As is done in other sports, rowers in the lightweight division should be required to weigh in immediately after their event, if they are to be credited with any medals or records in the lightweight division.

[Alissa]

Something needs to be done to stop people training as Heavyweight and racing as Lightweight. Maybe something like weighing in after an event rather than before.

As is done in other sports, rowers in the lightweight division should be required to weigh in immediately after their event, if they are to be credited with any medals or records in the lightweight division.

Emphasis in red added.

Which other sports do after-competition weigh-ins?

[TPMcT]

I also think it is wrong for people to train as heavyweight and then drop the weight a few days before (or the morning of) a competition to race as lightweight, It comes across to me that these people are just glory hunters. These people can not make it in competitions as heavyweights; they would be to far down the order to collect any rewards for their efforts on the day, so they take the easy option by going to a lesser contested category.

Something needs to be done to stop people training as Heavyweight and racing as Lightweight.

Ummmm...welcome to rowing, did you just get here or something?

Lightweight rowing has been around since 1974, and people have been making weight and then rehydrating before their race since....1974. If you weighed all of the elite lightweight rowers in November, you'd be hard pressed to find any that were under weight. It's part of the sport. Getting it right (the weight loss) is as much a part of being a successful lightweight rower as getting any other aspect correct.

If there are so many things you dislike about the sport, please go find something else to troll about.

Lighweight rowing has actually been around since 1916 when it was introduced at the University of Pennsylvania. The The first Harvard-Yale-Princeton lightweight race was held in 1923. (This information, by the way, is from Wikipedia.)

Chad raises an important point, but his accusatory tone is only going to cloud the discussion. Maybe the man just doesn't express himself well, but I infer from his original post lightweights, or at least some of them, cheat on the issue of weight. It would have been better to ask the question from the opposite side: What standards should lightweights follow when posting times on the ranking board? In furtherance of that discussion, I've started a new thread: http://www.c2forum.com/viewtopic.php?p=63261#63261

[Sir P]

Something needs to be done to stop people training as Heavyweight and racing as Lightweight. Maybe something like weighing in after an event rather than before.

Yes I agree completely.

Me too, I have raised this issue on the U.K forum before. Lwts should weigh in AFTER they have raced.

Sir P

[Daren]

Something needs to be done to stop people training as Heavyweight and racing as Lightweight. Maybe something like weighing in after an event rather than before.

Yes I agree completely.

Me too, I have raised this issue on the U.K forum before. Lwts should weigh in AFTER they have raced.

Sir P

But that way, someone might start a race over the limit, thus not be elligible as a lightweight rower. I can't, off the top of my head, think of a sport that has a lightweight division with its weigh-ins after the event. All the ones I can bring to mind (e.g. boxing, judo, wrestling) weigh-in before the event - sometimes not even on the same day. Are there any sports that have that sort of criteria checking after the event has taken place? Drug-testing takes place after, but that's not the same thing.

I suppose there's some motorsport.

[Sir P]

What about a weigh in before the race and then one after. Up to 60 minutes before and within 30 minutes after.

Sir P

[Daren]

What about a weigh in before the race and then one after. Up to 60 minutes before and within 30 minutes after.

Well, I don't really see the point. I mean, are you worried that a person will suddenly gain a lot of muscle in the intervening period? =) Surely, the only real difference is going to be the amount of water in the body. Obviously, being dehydrated has some physiological bearing upon performance, but if a person makes their weight and then rehydrates, I'm cool with that. As noted before, "sweating it off" to make weight is part and parcel of such weight divisions, not just in rowing. I just don't see it as enough of an issue to get uptight about it.

[Citroen]

Those that train as lightweights and race as lightweights will not get questioned by me, I can guarantee that (with a "RACE" in the rankings)

So what do we do about BIRC 2005. I made LWT 5 weeks before, raced as a LWT and did 7:04.9 and I'm still LWT. I ended up adding that result to the ranking system myself - it wasn't automatically added by C2. It isn't an IND_V verified result. It isn't marked as RACE result.

How do you reconcile that anomaly?

What about the regional race at Southampton, where they didn't even publish the results? (And the website they used to publicise the event has now been torn down.)

How do you reconcile that anomaly?

[Krysta Coleman]

I keep hearing people complaining about lightweight. Yes, it may be true that lightweights are people who just aren't ever going to be very sucessful in the open categories because of their stature. And, I suppose, being a lightweight champion may not be as glorious as winning as a hwt, but I still think it is important for the same reasons as there are age and gender classes. Women don't compete against men because it is unrealistic. It is also unrealistic for a 65 year old to compete against a 25 year old. And for a 160 lb man to compete against a 220 lb man. These different categories make the sport more entertaining and inclusive, in my opinion.

As for weigh-ins, making weight seems to be a big part of the game. A borderline lwt has no big advantage by weighing in 2 hours before their race. It seems, more often than not, that lwts really hurt their times by starving and dehydrating the preceeding day and morning of their race. I know I did. If someone has a yo-yo diet and has to struggle to make weight on race day, I consider that suffering, not cheating.

Just my thoughts...

- Krysta

[Daren]

Women don't compete against men because it is unrealistic. It is also unrealistic for a 65 year old to compete against a 25 year old. And for a 160 lb man to compete against a 220 lb man.

Ah, but someone made the point that we don't have high-jump competitions for people shorter than 5'6" and another for those 5'6" and over, but similar reasoning applies (it's unrealistic for a person of 5'6" to compete with a person of 6'6" at that event - and I dare say many others; long jump, triple jump...) Similarly, lightweight sprinters are at a disadvantage compared to well-muscled heavyweight sprinters. So, I follow that argument; however since lightweight rowing already exists, I don't see a good reason to kill it off.