Successful agreement
These works also make it possible to provide its premises with a real weight room for its members who belong to the Lapurdiko arraun taldea (LAT) team, born from the merger of Ibaialde and Ur Yoko, club of Saint-Jean- de-Luz, to enter a team in the trainieres championship organized by the ACT league (association of trainieres clubs). Most of the clubs are in Cantabria, in the Basque provinces on the Spanish side and in Galicia.
The LAT is the only team on the north side of the Pyrenees. It is chaired by Bixente Etchegaray, president of Ur Yoko. “In Saint-Jean-de-Luz, we started in the 1990s. The agreement with Ibailade began in 2016. It made it possible to reach a level that we had never had. »
“Setting up a high-performance team was not easy, recalls Martxel Laborde-Peyré, from Ibaialde. We live in the shadow of football, rugby and pelota and rowing clubs like La Nautique or Aviron Bayonnais are quite far from the trainière. »
“We want to consolidate the presence of train regattas on our territory, insists Bixente Etchegaray. Perhaps by managing to organize a greater number of them. The ideal would be to create a rowing school. »
A high level coach
For this season, the LAT crews are supervised by Joseba Fernandez. “Aito Artetxe, who was our coach, wanted to quit. On the nerve, we called Joseba, who is a figure with a hell of a CV, who has been coaching at the highest level for almost twenty years. He told us yes. »
Vincent Laffitte, an English rower involved in the LAT project from the start, welcomes this. “We were several friends to start. We came from the mobile bench at the Nautique. The trainière regatta is a tough discipline, but one that provides a lot of pleasure. It is also a real team sport. The thirteen rowers must be perfectly coordinated. »
To allow the LAT to continue its ascent, Ibailade gave him his Lapurdi trainer, made of fiberglass, lighter than the one he had before. With the hope that the club of the Saint-Jean-de-Luz / Anglet agreement will achieve new performances in the ARC 2 championship which will begin in June.
