By EARYEL BOWLEG
ebowleg@tribunemedia.net
BAHAMIAN rower Sophie Paine will be racing for a good cause in the MCH.London virtual boat race to raise funds for charity.
She will be among Olympic, Paralympic, World Championship and club rowers in teams from Oxford and Cambridge for the virtual race tomorrow.
The Grand Bahama native has British citizenship and has competed for Great Britain at the under 23 World Championships. This time, she will represent Cambridge University as the teams compete on ergometers - rowing a collective distance of 6,838km.
"We've already completed the distance in advance of the race because it had to be like all strung together…So we submitted our scores on the same day. It was last week," she told The Tribune.
"So they've all been put together so that they can be shown on Saturday, but we all did it I think on the same day, like (all of) us across the world were rowing at different times during the day.
"We also videoed ourselves doing it… It will be five or six minutes long and you'll be able to see the graphics of the two boats competing against each other and then it will cut to videos of us individually on the rowing machine."
The two university's boat clubs usually compete in an annual rowing contest called "The Boat Race", but this year's event has been cancelled. The 23-year-old noted this event is not a replacement of the boat race, but explained she had not competed against Oxford and wanted to prove herself as well as help Power2Inspire raise money for charity.
Event organiser and founder of Power2Inspire John Willis told The Tribune each crew has a target of 5,000 pounds sterling and a collective target of 10,000 pounds sterling.
"Cambridge has stormed into the lead…. and they've raised over six and half thousand pounds already. Oxford needs some help there at 1,500 pounds. There's a bit of rivalry taking shape with the fundraising as well which is quite fun," Mr Willis said.
"So we gave them a collective target of 10,000 but I'm hopeful now that it's going to be easily beaten because the people want to support not only the individual rowers but also their favourite team. Whether it's Oxford in the Dark Blues or Cambridge in the Light Blues."
The race will be available to watch online on the charity's Give as You Live page at 3pm BST and viewers have the option to donate.
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