You all know the results and the splits; I’ll tell some stories from the banks.
Conditions were obviously different as soon as you walked out the door this morning; a drop of something like 15 degrees in the shade forced standard attire from “as little cotton as possible” of the past several days to sweatshirts and petroleum-based fleece products. The Natoma cross-head was in effect as well; DI V8 qualifying times went from the low-mid 6:20’s yesterday to the low-mid 6:30’s and 40s today. The flow issue is probably abating as well, thus the times that are more in keeping with what you see at Natoma late in the season, such as at Pac-10s and at NCAA’s last year.
On to the happy horse boggle:
Wishful thinking announcement of the day: “A banner was taken from the hospitality tent; we need it returned to the finish line tent.”
Attendance was pretty solid for a very cool, overcast Saturday morning mix of reps, semis, and finals. The DIII parents were out in force, however; there’s nothing quite like a large contingent of enthusiastic parents observing their kids giving their all. Parents were among the stars today:
In the DIII racing format, the petite final is somewhat of a defacto 2V grand. At the end of the petite, and when the crew was 2-3 lengths over the line, a parent let it all go: “Go Team! Yeah Team! Go Team! Yeah Team!” and then the clincher: a good 8-10 second “Yaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy!” you’d think this couldn’t be topped, but you were wrong; this segued directly into “We love you Tee—ee—eam, oh yes we do, we love you Tee—ee—eam …”
In the fours rep, USC rivaled this entry in the best parent sweeps: Pop had the binoculars and was calling all the margins; Mom was repeating “Go SC, Go SC,” and two little sisters were cheering “Here comes Sissy!”
Spares t-shirt of the regatta: Front: “We are rested and hungry, and want your seat.” Back: “Your worst nightmare: I am the spare.”
Medal stand chant of the day: “We are number two- Hey! We are number two- Hey!”
The Traub family had a good day; Trinity coach Marina's cousin Carly stroked the Kent School V8 to a New Englands win at Lake Quinsigamond today.
The race for places 13-15 in third level final in the DI eight was a brawl; the largest margin from first-third was two seconds, and it got tighter as they went down the course until it was a half-second at the line.
The giant jumbotron filled the downtime between races with random NCAA championships history – clips from five-year-old men’s golf tournaments, results from the past six years of track and field champs, a tally of recent I-AA football contest, etc. I know the downtime between rowing races can be dull, but wow.
Yah, this update was a bit corny, no doubt, no doubt. No need to be a hater about it, tho, as the kids in the hotel pool bellowed this afternoon. Obviously I was in the parent’s zone much of the day, and those folks have earned a little bit of corny, and everyone else was a bit more tightly wound today, so there were fewer rookie and first-day novelties. That’s okay; it’s all about the racing now.
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