Vuoksen Soutajat - Vuoksi Rowing Club, 60 years!

Vuoksen Soutajat, Imatra - Finland, was established 1949. My history with Vuoksen Soutajat began on 1994 when we moved to Imatra From Helsinki with my wife. At that point the club was not very active and there was not many rowers. I became chairman of the club on 1996 and with the handfull of people we started to revive the club. Funny co-incidence is that I sculled my first National Championship medal (3rd) in Imatra 1980 in 2x (boys U16) with Janne Martensson, guy who I have to praise or blame for my over 30 year career in Rowing. He was the one who dragged me to Helsinki Rowing Club on spring of 1979.

Revival Of Vuoksi Rowing Club was successfull and already on 1997 we started to build a new boathouse by Imatrankoski athletic field, with a support of many sponsors and the good will of City of Imatra. We sheared many good moments, many victories and losses, altogether, I enjoyed very much my time (12 years) as chairman of Vuoksi Rowing Club. Some of my dreams were too big, but some we did manage to reach. At the moment Vuoksi Rowing club has about 100 members, own gym, good boats and sculls for racing and recreational rowing.

The VS gym is really exceptional. We have about 20 rowers (bunch of them with slides), 5 wattbikes, 1-2 C2 dyno´s, 2 Concept2 SkiErgs, 2 treadmills. Nemes Perform vibrating machine for enhancing power training. This gym is really a paradise for indoor endurance training. (Finnish weather is not always pleasant for outdoor training) To spice up the training there is also several fitballs, small one hand weights and mats for stretching. Vuoksen Soutajat offers group rowing with very high class instructors, including Olympic silver medallist Minna Nieminen, and several finnish national champions. At my current position as Czech sculling head coach I am tempted to take my group to enjoy skiing and services of this gym during the winter months...

I wish the future of this club would be bright. Location is excellent, by Vuoksi river that flows thru the center of Imatra, small city of 30 000 people. Maybe it is not a co-incidence that small cities bring up Champions. Last weekend I attended Chalupa Cup that was held 17th time at Jindřichův Hradec, city of 10 000 people. Jindřichův Hradec is the home town, not only for Vachlav Chalupa, but also David Jirka, stroke man of Athens silver medal M4x, and Josef Luks, the coach of Jitka Antosova who recently won the U23 W1x title. Small cities face the common problem of Young and talanted moving to big cities to study, but at the same time the role of small city clubs in upbringing the young is enormous and very important for the sport.

When I some day return to Imatra it would be nice to see active rowing club, strong and skillful rowers training on the river and skiing tracks of Imatra.

I wish very happy 60th anniversary to club that I consider very much My Rowing Club. For the club members I wish jolly good party on 10th October 2009, do not hardly party, but PARTY HARD! I wish I could be there with my wife, also active Vuoksi Rower, but at this occation it is unfortunately impossible.