Another day of racing was sacrificed to the ocean winds today, although today's conditions were due to a bonafide weather system than to sea "breezes." Unlike Saturday and Monday, where conditions at the start were almost tranquil and descended into a tempest in the second half of the course, today a direct headwind left the finish line and launching areas quite nice, and turned the start into a swamping zone. Crews that went all the way up to the start in the early morning reported taking on water rapidly when they tried to turn the boat and row across the course sideways to the wind and whitecaps.
See the revised schedule here and the revised start list here
Fairness committee officials went up the course while crews were out practicing and saw the situation, and first called a postponement at 7:30 am, and then cancelled the racing for the day at 8 am. Subsequently the course was closed above the 1000 meter mark, and crews were allowed to continue practicing.
“As we said yesterday, we wanted to see the forecast that came in at six last night and what came in this morning,” said FISA executive director Matt Smith. “We sent our team down to the start to see if the conditions with a headwind that we were experiencing allowed us to race in the first 500. The answer was no.”
As was the case on Tuesday, when races originally scheduled for both Monday and Tuesday were contested, change sets up a very packed Friday racing docket, with all of the racing from today and tomorrow. That makes for six medals ceremonies tomorrow – no big deal for those who were around back when all the finals were raced on Saturday and Sunday – but does create a lot of unintended pressures for schedulers and crews alike.
For example, since there was a possibility that the racing might continue this afternoon, the lightweight men's and women's double who were to have raced semifinals this morning were required to weigh in. The same thing happened on Monday, so for crews that raced through the reps, that sets up a minimum of six consecutive days of weigh ins – with the potential for even more if there are more delays.
Additionally, this morning the NZ duo doubling in the women's pair and women's eight was going to have to race twice in 70 minutes time; they will now have to do that tomorrow (hopefully).
The fairness committee is of course also charged with making sure the athletes are safe, but even at the far edges of these concerns, no one really wants the Olympic champions to be determined by who can survive extremely marginal conditions. The number of weather problems in recent years – or even going back as long as I can remember – creates a near truism that very rowable courses are not always fair, and very fair courses are not always rowable, whew.
Tomorrow's weather report calls for clouds and sunshine, a high of 73 degrees – and WSW winds at 10-20 mph during racing. Thisis a similar wind to last Saturday – which everyone saw on television – although is not predicted to be quite as strong.
“Tomorrow, we will come down again at six and try to assess the situation, and we will do the same thing as we planned today,” Smith said. “We stay reasonably optimistic about tomorrow, but Friday and Saturday, as of now, are still saying quite good conditions.”
We will have to wait until tomorrow to see what happens, but one thing is for sure; I don't know anyone who would want to be on the Rio 2016 fairness committee.
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