OPINION
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Almost two years ago to the day I penned an opinion piece on these pages calling on Head of the Lake rowing officials to stop their random local interpretations and start following well-established state-based rules.
Back then, it was a call to try to avoid repeats of the disappointing re-row of the Boys’ 2017 Head of the Lake a few days earlier when odd local rules allowed a cox to be weighed in two days before the big race. The superior St Pat’s crew that year was denied a moment of glory and a re-row ordered on the following Wednesday.
Now, two further runs of this once prestigious event have been marred in controversy by officials who seemed determined to keep doing their own thing on the run without explanation to participants.
RELATED COVERAGE
The 2018 event was run in dangerous conditions with incredibly strong winds that saw the sinking of boats and risk to students. This was in breach of Rowing Victoria safety protocols requiring races to be abandoned in strong winds.
To some small credit, a lesson was learned from last year’s mistake and last Sunday’s regatta was postponed due to strong winds again. Unfortunately from that point on, the wheels fell off a third time in as many events with the edict from school principals that students would be banned from attending; threatened with suspension and stripping of leadership roles.
Presentations to all but the main boys’ and girl’s Head of the Lake races would also be cancelled, presumably to discourage supporters from attending, in an unnecessary and mean-spirited act.
Year nine crews that raced last Sunday have had their results annulled and victorious crews from the weekend who don’t repeat the outcome will now have every right to feel robbed by the re-row.
So now, two years and three Head of the Lakes later, we’re seeing not just the re-rowing of one race, but the entire 28-race program will be restarted in a student exclusion zone, designed to be as bland as possible.
The Head of the Lake regatta has been a local tradition stretching back to 1912 that hundreds of school boys, girls and their mostly volunteer coaches spend several months every year training for. The roar of the crowd and presentations before their cheering peers is what gets them on the lake at the crack of dawn through many cold mornings.
This event and the training it inspires is what makes the comparatively small city of Ballarat punch so far above its weight. Every year, we’re home to three or four of the top eight schoolboy and schoolgirl fours crews in the nation. But those days are numbered as a once great event is slowly strangled with three monumental failings in a row.
Three strikes mean it’s now time for Ballarat Associated Schools to either find better management protocols and communicate better – or hand over the reigns to Rowing Victoria. If the Head of the Lake was run by a private, professional event company, they’d be in crisis talks about how to repair three years of severe brand damage.
Officials will be praying for calm winds at future regattas, because a gale of discontent is blowing among the city’s rowers, coaches and parents at the slow demise of this proud 107-year-old event.
Daniel Moloney, a City of Ballarat councillor, is also a rowing coach for Ballarat High School and won the Head of the Lake in 1993.