The World Rowing Championships finished today after 10 very successful days. It was windy on two days but mostly the weather was good and today it was perfect. A large number of spectators attended. Today, 15,243 spectators came to see the finals and the total for the whole 10 days was 66,771 which is a record for world rowing championships in any country. FISA, which is the international organisation, was very pleased with the whole event.

Great Britain finished with the most medals: 5 gold medals, 5 silver and 1 bronze. Germany was second with 5 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze. New Zealand was third with 3 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze.

While some countries which are new to rowing did not win any medals it was a chance for them to compete in a world event. New Zealand supplied boats for many of these countries because it was too expensive for them to bring their own boats.

In the adaptive events, there were races for physically disabled athletes and for intellectually disabled athletes. The normal course of 2,000m was shortened to 1,000m for the adaptive events. They started halfway down the course so they could finish in front of the main spectators’ stand.

The championships finished when four Maori waka, (boats), with 40 men in each waka, paddled across the lake. They then performed a haka to mark the end of the world rowing championships in New Zealand. It was a very impressive performance.

The organisers of the championships had the help of 600 volunteers. They can all feel proud of the great success of their efforts.

Questions

1. More than 800 people applied to be a volunteer but not all were chosen. Why do you think so many people wanted to volunteer? What kind of jobs did they do?

2. In our society, many people do volunteer work. What kind of volunteer work do they do? Do you know any volunteers?