The junior single sculls winner will probably be fitter and more tactically aware than the average Scottish pro football player
They're called ''minority sports'' - the faintly dismissive description of competitive activities considered to be worthy enough diversions, but not suitable vehicles for the big-money sponsorship, hyped media attention or over-blown personalities involved nowadays in the pursuit of balls of various shapes and sizes. By any part of that description, rowing is clearly a ''minority sport''.
However, this weekend at Strathclyde Park - Scotland's only Olympic-standard sports facility and site two years ago of Scotland's largest-ever world championships in any sport - rowing is showing how large and dedicated a minority sport can be.
For only the third time, the National Rowing Championships of Great Britain have travelled north from their normal home in Nottingham and 637 crews have entered the three-day marathon - a figure that equates to 1770 competitive ''seats'', making this one of the year's biggest single sporting events in Scotland.
All competitors, their coaches and schoolteachers and the many officials needed to stage the event, have come to Scotland for no other reason than to take part in the major focus of their competitive season. Many will have spent a lot to be here, and only the best and luckiest will go home with a medal tomorrow. But for everyone involved, the main hope is that they will have had a weekend of good, fair competition. Money does not enter the equation, except to figure out how much the weekend has cost.
Although the ''Nat Champs'' is a big event, it is not the only rowing regatta at which significant levels of effort and dedication are on display. Neither is rowing the only ''minority sport'' in which unsung heroes quietly go about their voluntary business without a song and dance. However, sometimes specific examples can put things into perspective, while helping to explain the frustrations that many amateurs feel when they read about the obscene piles of money that slush around professional sport.
For example, whoever wins this weekend's junior single sculls event, the category open to 17-year-old schoolboys, will have to beat 23 other equally dedicated competitors. He will also probably be fitter, have endured a much tougher and longer training regime, be more tactically aware, know more about diet as well as proper physiological and psychological preparation than the average Scottish professional football player. Instead of taking home a wage packet that many would consider to be inflated beyond reason, tomorrow night he will be showing his mum and dad a ''Nat Champs'' gold medal.
In many ways, rowing's top officials are equally as dedicated - or should that be daft? Take Kilbarchan's John McKinney. While you are reading this, he will be in the middle of the second of three consecutive 12 hour-plus shifts trapped at the top of the finish tower at Strathclyde Park. McKinney is the championships' race controller, the man with whom the buck stops, making sure the race programme of some 300 individual heats, repechages, semi-finals and finals goes off without a hitch despite the constantly changing difficulties he will face this weekend, caused by withdrawals, allocation of lanes as crews qualify for later stages and, whisper it, possibly bad weather.
McKinney, a top local government official, has filled this role for years. Few competitors know he exists or what he does, and his only reward will be walking away tomorrow evening knowing that he and his team have done a good job yet again.
While the crews taking part in these British championships come from the complete range of nearly anonymous clubs that exist up and down the country, there are some well-known faces.
Barcelona Olympic champion and current world bronze medallist Greg Searle will be defending his men's single sculls title. He will also be hoping to find the form and pace to make him competitive in this year's world championships in September.
Also taking part and racing for his original club, Loch Lomond, is Peter Haining, Scotland's three-times world champion. Haining has only recently returned to the lightweight single sculls class, reaching the final at last weekend's prestigious Lucerne regatta in Switzerland in his first competition in this category since landing the last of his unique hat trick of world titles in Finland in 1995.
Despite his track record and reputation, Haining will not have things his own way this weekend. He is in one of the most competitive events and faces a tough task wresting the British title from Kevin Plank of Stirling.
Another strong Scottish challenge will be in women's single sculls, with under-23 world champion and senior world bronze medallist Katherine Grainger of St Andrew (Edinburgh) among the favourites. Perhaps the strongest Scottish hope for a title in a crew boat lies with the coxed four of Lochwinnoch-based club Castle Semple, semi-finalists at Henley Royal Regatta two weeks ago.
The action at Strathclyde Park starts early both today and tomorrow, continuing till early evening without a break. The main senior finals are scheduled for tomorrow afternoon and, given the sport's ''minority'' status, as well as support this weekend from Park operators North Lanarkshire Council, it will come as no surprise to learn that admission is free.
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