For you lucky rowers (all 4700 of you) converging on beautiful Bled right now for the 2017 World Rowing Masters Regatta, I’m sure you’ve got your racing starts down to a fine art.

You’ve been visualising rowing up to the start, entering your lane, attaching to your boat-holder, sitting ready, waiting for the green light, right?

Would it help if brothers Martin and Valent Sinkovic took you on board their boat to show you how it’s done?

In this 2015 video, the brothers are racing the double scull and Valent in the stroke seat is wearing a camera to capture the warm up, the start line, the starting orders and first 2 minutes or so of the race.

With no music, just the sound of Valent’s breathing, the first 15 strokes of the race are enough to get my pulse racing (hmmm).

The video is 30-minutes long but here are some timestamps you can jump to:

5:45 – Square-blade warm up

8:30 – Long piece at low rate

11:00, 12:40 and 15:00 – Warm-up pieces

17:30 – Racing start practice

21:00 and 23:50 – Short pieces (15 strokes) at high rate

25:20 – Racing start practice

26:50 – Attaching to the pontoon at the start line

27:03 – Personal message from bowman Martin

“Hello to all our friends all over the world. We hope you’re enjoying this race to see from our perspective. Hello and enjoy.”

28:40 Red light on

28:43 Green light on – GO!

All the best if you are racing this week. Warm up properly, keep your composure and remember to breathe.

If you are at Bled, I would love to hear first-hand about the scene there at the course, the racing, the weather, the new friendships, the old friendships, the impromptu jumping in boats, the what-could-have-beens, the apres-row shenanigans! Feel free to send me an update, a photo, a short video clip that I can share here on the blog.

PS Thank you Valent and Marten for sharing this video.