Upon arrival at the Schilpol airport, I approached and information kiosk and asked where I could find the nearest ATM.
"It is here, to the left… right under the Heineken sign."
Yep, we're in Amsterdam. The city has been a (rain) sodden mess for three weeks, according to the locals, and the past several days of training have seen downpour after downpour roll down the narrow cut of the Bosbaan, a 2200-meter long, exactly eight-lane wide basin just on the outskirts of town just alongside the airport – from the air it looks almost like another runway.
In recent years, the locals have built a new boathouse, and have tricked out the course for the regatta very nicely, with picnic areas extending up the course from the grandstands (complete with massive cushions), and walking access almost all the way to the start on the spectator side, and a nicely paved peloton trail on the boatyard side.
They also reversed the direction of the course, which was probably to the liking of a lot of crews today, as a pretty brutal – but at least direct – tailwind turned the last few hundred meters of the course into a field of white horses.
The conditions definitely helped a few crews; a number of races were within sprinting distance of a world record, and the French light men's double set a new world record today. Conditions also almost sent the whole show to a time trial format - apparently a concern with the basin course is that cross head and tail winds create a bathtub-swirl type effect, with water going in a big circle, down some lanes, and back up other lanes. As I mentioned, today's direct tail likely did not create this effect, and I couldn't see anything like it today when checking lanes carefully on both sides of the course.
Light Singles
Andrew Campbell started off the day for the US with a win in the light men's single; Campbell put in a solid first 1500 that allowed him pretty much to float it in in the final strokes at well under a 30; he said he went hard for the first 3/4 of the race, but that he wouldn't quite call it a full pull. Campbell defended his U23 world title just last month, and feels back on track for this regatta.
"I definitely felt like I have had enough time to cycle up again after the Under 23s," he said after the heat. "It feels like a long time ago I was racing in Italy. I’m really happy with my preparation going into this regatta, and I had a good heat out there. It was nice to get to row in this big tailwind, to kind of practice for what we could see in the days to come. I feel like I’ve gotten better at the fundamentals we’ve been working on all summer from the Under 23s to now, so I’m looking forward to showing off the progress I’ve made."
In the light women's single, Kate Bertko gave Leonie Press of Germany a good run, showing that she still can still bring some heat even after the very odd summer she has endured. Next up, the women's pair won their heat with what looked like a pretty workaday effort, even positive splitting the race in the big building tail as they relaxed more and more going down the racecourse.
M2-
The men's pair hit one of the few bumps for the US squads on the day, placing third in a two-to-qualify heat behind GB and Spain. “We didn’t get into the race,” bow seat Glenn Ochal said. “We got left behind, and we couldn’t claw our way back in. We’ll have another opportunity to get better, get better racing.”
Light Doubles
The light men's double of Josh Konieczny and Austin Meyer led their heat for a bit, and then after relinquishing the lead to Great Britain, poured it on a bit coming to the line to draw almost even with the British crew for a bit before they responded and pulled out again.
"I think with that race we had the intention of going out confidently with what we’ve been working on back in Boston, and that was the start," Meyer said. "We’ve always been a strong finisher. It wasn’t quite a full pull; I think the rate went up, but I think both of us can agree that wasn’t an all out sprint. I think we expected the British to tail off a little more than they did, but you know, you chalk that up and get ready for the quarterfinals, because I think we have more to give. I think you have to take each race one at a time and make sure that first you accomplish one goal, which is getting through, and then you can feel free to experiment once you’re done with that."
"This year has been kind of a whirlwind tour for us, and the mentality is just keep things on the level, making sure that we’re calm and confident enough to just bang out every single race that we need to," Konieczny added.
"We have two days to recover too, so if we had the quarter final tomorrow we probably would have gone after it maybe a little sooner and then shut it down a little sooner, but we have two days to recover, so it’s plenty of time," Meyer noted. "You don’t want to get flat out there. We’re looking to peak for the quarter finals and semifinals because those are back to back. We had no qualms about going after today."
The light women's double finished with the fourth fastest time of their event on the day, but still ended up in second behind South Africa, and so headed for the reps when the race was over. The crew seemed somewhat disappointed with their row, but they seem on stronger footing than their last trip to Europe this year, and the times seem to bear that out. Keep an eye.
Men's Four
The US men's four found themselves in what was probably the race of the day; with only two to advance, and the race going three across all the way to the line, it came down to the photo finish to figure it out, and in the end only 0.64 separated the winner from the reps. The US crew split the difference, and heads directly to the semis – a long four days from now. In situations like this, it can almost help to have a tough heat, as otherwise it can be a long four days of thinking you have things in the bag. I asked two seat Mike Gennaro if he might almost prefer a race like that given the situation.
"Yeah, it’s good; it’s a really competitive event," he said. "On top of the tight competition, there were difficult conditions, but everyone’s got to race in them. There were rumors of going to a time trial, then not going to a time trial. So all the conditions just throw in an extra variable into something you have to focus on a little bit, but be careful not to focus on too much. When it’s all said and done and the light turns green, you’ve got to go. That’s why you’ve just got to trust your committee and your coaches and go out there and race hard. When it’s tight like that, well, that’s what we signed up for. You want to be in a close race, you want to test your speed, test your poise, your composure. We don’t get to do that this often. It was good, and it was fun."
Quads
The US women's quad had a real squabble with the Canadian boat coming down the course, with the Canadians leading almost the entire way, but the US prevailed in the end with a time that was only about three seconds off the current world record. The top of the field in the women's quad is pretty tight, and this should be a great race to watch come next weekend.
The US men's quad did not fare as well, falling out of advancing position fairly early when Russia exploded to an open water lead, only to be reeled in by China coming to the line. The US crew never really got into the thick of it, placing third.
Heavy Singles
US men's sculler Yohann Rigogne suffered a similar fate as AZE, BEL and NED raced all the way to the line for lanes in the quarterfinal, not to mention pride.
In the women's single, US sculler Gevvie Stone overcame a bit of a rigging glitch right before her race; after launching, she realized that the pitch inserts on one side of her scull had been put in backward, which sent her boat diving to one side every time she tried to lean on the blades. She backed into the dock, got some rigging triage, and headed back out to the line.
When she got there, she was bested off the start by Magdalena Lobnig of Austria, who blasted out to about a five second lead on everyone by 500 gone. Stone typically closes well, though, and she showed that tendency again today, coming back to within four seconds by the 1000, three by 1500, and just under one second at the finish. Stone advances to the quarterfinals.
I knew Magdalena was going to get out fast, she’s a really strong start, so my goal was to race a solid race," Stone said. "I didn’t expect to have to chase her down to finish top four, so I wanted to have a solid race. If I could beat her that would be great, but I definitely knew I wanted to beat Sweden and Norway, and knew that that was within range. So I kind of got ahead of the Swede and stayed out in front of her. Finishing second was kind of my expectation and goal, and would hopefully give me a good lane for the quarter finals.
"My goal now is to have my fastest race when the racing counts, in the semifinals and the finals. I’m not fully tapered yet, and the goal is to go as fast as possible on Friday and Sunday."
Notes from the course:
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08/25/2014 11:41:06 AM