Holy smokes, it's on to the next big regatta at Lucerne. World Cup II got underway in Lucerne today, with good representation from the world's elite crews testing their speed 70-something days or so from the start of the Rio Olympics. With that ultimate goal in mind, the crews racing here came at this regatta with a wide variety of goals and focuses, some teams using the event as a speed check, some for selection, and some who are here right in the middle of a training period.
The 18 US crews racing here are no different, with results today against the field ranging all over the map as a result. A few highlights; both the USA Women's Pairs of Musnicki/Logan and Mueller/Luczak won their heats today, and then came back a little over three hours later to join up with four teammate to win the W8+ "race for lanes as well." A good days' work.
Likewise, USA W1x Gevvie Stone threw down the fastest time of the day in her event to win her heat; she'll race in the semifinal tomorrow.
On the Men's side, the USA Men's Four and Men's Lightweight doubles avoided the reps with solid second place rows in their heats today, qualifying directly for the semis.
The newly-minted USA Men's Eight, fresh off two trips to the well this past weekend, used today's preliminary race to test their front-end speed, and led the full field to the 1000 meter mark before shutting it down (for wonks, check out the race splits and GPS data)
Beyond that, across the squad there were a few other solid rows, and a few bumps as well, but as USRowing Director of High Performance Curtis Jordan explained, results at this particular regatta only mean so much. "We've got a big team, like the US always does, and that automatically implies that you are going to have varied results," said Jordan, while acknowledging that any poor results here, or in the Olympic run-up could become discussion fodder. "There will be plenty of people that will have an opinion, but they'll be uninformed opinions," he said.
The main point, Jordan said, is that all the coaches and crews have differnt goals for Lucerne. "Each one of these programs, each one of these coaches are at different points in their training and their preparation, their selection, so some of them are training through the regatta, some of them are still in the selection, so I think that any coach that gets wound up that happens outside of what they've got planned, then that's a mistake, so from our end, this is what it is. You come here and you learn. If you come here and you win the race and you don't learn, that's a mistake. If you come here and you finish poorly but learn a lot, then it's succesful."
And so, that's the tightrope walk that the athletes and coaches will be walking here this week; internal focus, but realizing that this weekend brings with it times and rankings.
A few events have undergone shifts as a result of the final olympic qualifier earlier this week; the eights events have dropped to finals-only as a result of the withdrawal of both the Australian Men's & Women's eights, who both failed to qualify for Rio. Adding to the sad/brutal stats from that regatta, this will be the first Olympics in 70 years without at least one eight from Australia.
Across other events, a few qualifiers have opted to race at the World Cup also; all four of the US crews that competed here earlier this week (M1x, M2x, M4x and M8+) are competing at the World Cup this weekend.
Even with just a few days between events, there are noticeable differences between the two regattas; the FISA Olympic Qualifier was a fairly spare affair, esp. on land, while the World Cup, run under the auspices of the local organizers, is noticeably jazzed up in terms of amenities and set up. Both regattas have benefitted from a recently completed, significant upgrade in Lucerne's facilities, including a rebuilt finish tower and a large, enhanced boathouse and athlete staging area at the main boating area, which has drawn raves from the athletes.
Of course, the downside is that, with the NZ M2- actually racing here this weekend, you won't see the Eric Murray broadcast roadshow for the finals, which is a shame.
It doesn't pay to get married, at least not if you're the Australian women's olympic single sculler. An early version of the draw for today's heats had USA's Gevvie Stone, Australia's Kim Brennan (nee Crow), and the Czech sculler Mirka Knapkova all drawn in the same heat. When asked about this at the team manager's meeting, FISA's initial response was that they had no data on any "Kim Brennan," after which it was pointed out that Brennan was the defending world champ, now competing under her married name. The heats were promptly redrawn.
The FISA uniform/grievance police was out in full force today, with one of the two USA Women's Quads bearing the brunt of it: "USA! Your uniform is not uniform!"
Finally, a travel advisory: if you're in Lucerne, be warned that if you leave your seat at breakfast at ANY point during your meal, even if it's only to get another cup of coffee, the hyperefficient Swiss will take your food away and bus your tray before you can blink.
Comments | Log in to comment |
There are no Comments yet
|
row2k's Olympics coverage is brought to you by:
row2k's Olympics coverage is brought to you by: