Due to the wind direction, incoming flights headed to Heathrow went right over the rowing course; talk about a good view. Tickets? Who needs tickets?
The photographers have a truck on which is perched, somewhat precariously and without seatbelts or other protection of any kind, a small grandstand. The trucks are driven by UPS employees; the driver for the 'even-numbered' races today was not a delivery truck driver, but instead is a safety manager. He understood the irony of a safety officer driving people around in the equivalent of a jacked up pickup truck bed.
The racing started off with a wind that was more head than cross, but within an hour, the one wind that really worries folks at Dorney had fully settled in. A similar wind is expected tomorrow, but even stronger; as I understand it, lane switches and even the possibility of using the extra day on Sunday could come to pass. I think most participants agree that the lanes were not quite created equal today.
The great Olaf Tufte is really struggling this year; with two Olympic golds in his sock drawer, it is tough to see him place sixth in the semi. The Azerbaijan single sculler, however, is equally as surprising to see – from U23s to the Olympic final in a blink is an incredible feat, and he knows it – he was crying just over the line after qualifying today.
As unlikely as it would have been to see the US women's pair win a medal after the year (hell, it was more like a month) they have had, it stung pretty badly to see them miss it by only two tenths of a second – when it is that damn close, it really hurts.
Then by the end of the day, after the men's eight had missed the podium by three tenths, it was doubly painful – to have had these particular 11 athletes, who had overcome outrageous odds this summer, go up and accept a medal would have been a true delight.
I don't recall a men's eight race that was this close in all of the 15 years I have been doing row2k, and the decade of racing internationally before that; three seconds from first to sixth, and only 0.69 from third place to sixth, whew.
I also don't recall a recent Olympics where there were truly dominant boats in multiple events; a number of crews really just ran away with their events, and almost cruised in – the NZ pair is the most obvious example, but the GB women's pair did the same, as did the Ukraine women's quad for most of the race.
By the way, the GB women's pair is not only the first GB women's rowing gold ever, but it is also the GB's first gold medal of this home Olympics. The pair is getting some serious TV time here – nice!
After the US women's quad took bronze, I was able to toss a US flag to them down on the dock, which made a whole lot of photographers happy, at least. At around 4:30, Natalie Dell wrote to tell me she was looking all over for me to return the flag; talk about an honest broker. I should have it back by the morning in anticipation of hopefully tossing it up onto the medals platform again.
After the racing, the crew headed into the media conference room for an official press conference under the lights, with mics, etc. – I bolted in immediately so that there was someone there to throw them a question, as sitting through one of those without getting asked any questions (often simply due to the absence of any US journos) is always awkward; I did this same routine with the FISA interview leader at Worlds last year, although in that case I did it for every single press conference, all week – when the room went silent, they just gave me the mic and I came up with something.
The crew did great, of course, but one interesting thing that did get mentioned was that the lack of racing together was mitigated by the massive extra doses of racing against each other this year in a selection process that went down to the wire. Natalie Dell mentioned that the process was 'brutal,' and that it engendered tremendous trust in the ranks.
I did a bunch of interviews after the racing while grabbing Scene pics, those should be transcribed by tomorrow sometime.
Last comment from me: the new schedule, which puts the men's eight on WEDNESDAY, was truly disorienting today. It looked every bit like the end of the Olympic regatta always looks – five dozen crew members and their extended families swarming the site, toasting and drinking, hugging huge guys soaked from jumping in the lake – the whole deal. The only thing is, there are three more days of racing.
I brought the topic up with a group of rowing legends in, well, the loo the other day, and they all said the same thing – the regatta should end with the eights. Now they just get started with the eights – and despite knowing it is coming, it still feels backwards.
And now eight eights of dudes have four extra days to burn off years of energy – FISA might hear from security teams that they need to go back to the old schedule, whew.
And now, more news: racing notes from John's iPad stateside:
W2- - Final
Talk about pressure: Team GB is supposed to own the medal count here at Eton, starting with the first A Final, this women's pair race. Add in 3 or 4 days of Team GB frustrations in the pool and elsewhere at these Games, and that one gold the Brits had hoped to win en route suddenly becomes the first gold of the Games that GB could win. Set a new Olympic Best Time in your heat to boot, and now you are a crew with a lot to lose--but the British women's pair handled all that, and the field, running out to a commanding lead that left the field scrapping for the rest of the medals. That scrap was pretty good, too, with the USA chasing Australia to try to get in third, and the Aussies responding well enough to pip New Zealand for the silver in the process. The Americans, who had made their way to these Games with a row-down for the ages at Trials, found themselves just short today, literally inches away from making the podium as the Kiwis fought them off.
W4x - Final
It is not often that the show gets stolen on this stage, and even breakout crews like 1996 Dutch M8 or the 2000 British M8 generally have a pedigree that suggests they could pull it off on the day, so hats off to Ukraine who ran away with the quad final--taking at one point an open water lead on Germany and USA--and never looked back…and all that in a headwind, no less. The win was UKR's first rowing gold ever, and the race plan was as classic as it was, on this day, effective: lined up against some fast crews? Some Worlds champs and medalists and inspired home teamers? Then just get the heck out of Dodge and hope no one can catch you. Well done. (To be fair, The Ukraine quartet did win their heat, but with Germany, USA, and China in the other heat, it was easy to think that the medals might all come from that side of the draw, or at least the winners. Not so, as the Ukrainians saw it--and to actually pull it off, at the Olympics? Wow.)
M8+ - Final
Waiting for the start of the M8 final, you had to wonder for a second if rowing is really ready for HD sound: hearing the guys banging on the gunwales was cool--definitely brought home all the nervous tension sitting there in the form of 54 primed athletes--but the grunting, coughing and hacking was, well, a bit too real. As we all know, there are a lot of noises that an eight can be home too, but not all of them are "ready for primetime." (There were a few news bits in the run up to the Games about how sound engineers have faked the sound for rowing in the past, but that was back when it was all long-shots and aerials). Yet the sound from Dorney, whether it was from the cable cam or where ever, has been crystal, and you could hear it all: boats running, catches splashing, and coaches yelling for all they were worth.
M1x - A/B Semis
Mahe Drysdale (NZL) likes to train on his bike, and you have to wonder how much his cycling carries over to his rowing strategy: like a savvy Tour rider, he let Lassi Karonen of Sweden set a punishing pace that ripped the field apart, then went through him at the end to take the win. From some vantage points it looked like those two were simply sculling on another level--an impression all the more remarkable because there were some very good scullers on the "level" they were leaving behind, most notably defending Olympic Champion Olaf Tufte (NOR) and Marcel Hacker (GER). Hacker, who did get through and even closed the gap a little, basically qualified after rowing in no man's land--4th place Cuba was nearly 8 seconds behind him. Tufte as mentioned above, headed to the B Final in last place, a victim of the pace on the front.
C/D Semis
Not much to race for besides pride in the C/D Semis, the one exception being for Denmark's Henrik Stephansen, who is now pointedly using the remainder of the Olympic Regatta as preparation for racing the Light Single at Worlds, where we imagine he is going to do pretty well. (For the record, Stephansen rowed down Mexico's Patrick Lollinger this morning to win his C/D Semi)
The pride race, and maybe a bit of statement-making ahead of the C Final, looked to be on the minds of the Light Men's Doubles from both Australia and Canada; hugely disappointed, the both of them, to be out of the medals hunt so early, each hit out to a massive lead in winning this round, and one suspects we are going to see some hard racing for the 13th spot overall when the C Final rolls around.
Petites: W4x & M8
The W4x served up an absolute doozy of a dual race: the New Zealand quad that was arguably one broken oar (and maybe 300 meters max) away from making the A Final went stroke for stroke with Poland. For 1900 meters (maybe longer), it was Poland by a seat, if that, and then the Kiwis broke through to win, by a seat. You can have your six lane racing, folks, sometimes dual races just rock. (Sometimes, they don't, though: not if you have the Polish Men, winners of the final World Cup, in a two boat race: the Poles left Ukraine in their wake early with a race more impressive than exciting--and it hammered home the point that we saw coming in: there were definitely more than the A Finals' six lanes worth of good men's eights here in London.
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