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Olympic Champion Erin Cafaro rows bow seat in the US Olympic W8+

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Rainy Day at the Olympic Park
posted by: Brad Alan Lewis (August 14, 2008)

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Olympic Mountains
posted by: Ed Hewitt (August 14, 2008)

Mountains plus smokestack beyond finish line

What a difference a day makes; we went from days of headwinds and haze to a direct tail coming down off the very clearly visible mountains beyond the starting line. The photographers went from waiting to a burst of lightning to photograph to setting up photos with the Rings and the mountains, and I've heard from folks who came out to Shunyi yesterday and left in disgust, and the nice weather has eliminated all memories of getting soaked and disappointed yesterday, and they're on the way back out to the course. More from the what a difference dept: after being pulled from the quad yesterday due to illness, the rain delay provided just enough time for recovery, and he is back in the boat today. Illness the past couple days has claimed a number of rowers; Santiago Fernandez withdrew yesterday, and looked very uncomfortable the day before when I followed his race in the launch; the German light men's four has had to withdraw from the racing, and one of the semis today will have only four boats; and after subbing for two men a couple days ago in the German men's four, those two guys are back, but another guy is now out. In the photos, you can also see for the first time some of the factories that had to be closed for the rowing events; the smokestacks appear to be just a few hundred meters above the starting line. Despite all the coverage of the pollution in Beijing, it would seem somewhat less controversial or surprising that these smokestacks would have to be shut down; if you held the Olympics in the nation with the cleanest air on Earth, but had a smokestack that close to the line, you would need to shut it down. The weed problem seems serious but usually under control, but there have been a couple instances where it mahy have or very nearly affected the racing. Two I know of: in the men's single semis, Olaf Tufte pulled into the line shortly before the two minute cutoff, and asked that his fin be checked. The official boomed "TOO LATE," but it turned out that the swimmer was already in the water, and the official complained somewhat mightily; the fin was checked nonetheless, and the race went off. However, unless the scullers were told ahead of time that they need to be at the line early in order to have their fins checked, which was not clearly the case based on the conversations with officials I had, it would seem to me that if you arrive at the line on time - i.e., before the two-minute cutoff - you should enjoy all the benefits of the starting line procedures that all the other competitors enjoy, including having your fin checked. In a semi of the women's single, the Swedish sculler Frida Svensson told the officials that there were weeds in her lane; the starting line officials then tried to get an officials launch to check and clear the lane. There are no radios on the officials launches however, so considerable shouting and gesturing ensued; then apparently the official wanted to go check the lane, but could not transmit this information to the driver of the launch due to a language barrier, and the lane check did not occur. Svensson subsequently placed last in the semi, eight seconds out of qualifying, and protested at the finish line. As i understand it, her fin was checked on the water, no weeds were found, and the protest was disallowed. When she took her boat out of the water, however, there was a strand of weed on the fin. So this one went to the jury in the evening, but ultimately the protest was denied. Uniwatch: the unis of the US W8 are identical to the old-school US uniforms of the 70s and 80s, save for the patch; apparently they couldn't bring the patch together in time to match it up. Check out more photos from this morning here.