Tuesday's second day of weather delay at the Sea Forest Waterway in Tokyo saw no racing, but conditions that were good enough to allow quite a few crews to get practice laps in, and as typhoon Nepartak (which was actually downgraded to a tropical storm here overnight) turns northwards, away from Tokyo, it looks as if we will be back on schedule for our first medal racing of the Games tomorrow; call it the calm during the storm.
As University of Washington coach Yaz Farooq, who is helping out with the US team in Tokyo explains, decisions like the one to delay racing are made for reasons of safety and fairness.
"Everyone who was here for Gifu [Worlds 2005, eds], in that case they actually had to remove the whole course in advance of a storm," said Farooq. "At the end of the day, everyone wants the best conditions that you can get to have fair racing, so that the athletes feel like the effort they put into the journey to get this moment, that they had the best shot when they line up side by side in the blocks. People have waited five years for this Olympics, so there is no rush to get a race in if it's not going to put these athletes in the best position to have a fair race and one where they feel they can put their best effort on the line."
For now, Farooq is helping out with the more mundane tasks, like tracking down a US rower's laundry, which went missing in the Olympic Village laundry service earlier this week, and has not been seen since.
A two-day break in racing is an almost alien notion for row2k; more typically we do giant dawn-to-dusk sessions in two days, or six regattas at four venues in two days (AQ/Vails/Stotes/Sprints/more weekend anyone?), or a weekend of college and junior racing followed by a week of trials racing overlapping with another weekend of college and junior racing, making at times for 8-10 day runs of continuous regatta coverage being almost normal.
The past couple days we did quick visits to a peek at a couple other sports, and come away with the following:
Notes from the Course All Over
- As we head into tomorrow's medals finals, the venue is being checked to make sure everything is ready to for the teevee; we saw one technician testing the on-course microphones by walking back and forth in front of them shouting "I am making rowing noises!!!"
- A few observers have remarked on the fact that, here in Tokyo, the racecourse lanes are numbered with Lane 6 closest to the finish tower/boathouse side, which is opposite the way lanes are typically numbered. The reason for this is TV graphics; with the TV cameras on the same side as the grandstand, the lanes on TV have to be numbered from 1-6 from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen, which puts Lane 1 on the far side of the course, to the right of the starter's tower. In past similar situations, we have heard race officials struggle to adjust to the 'backwards' lane order for the first few races of their shift.
- A US coach did an analysis of racing results up to this point in the regatta that appears to show that there were far more winners/advancers from lanes 1 & 2 on the course than from 5 & 6; in fact, racers in lane 2 averaged a full place higher than racers in lane 5. Our understanding is that this is being discussed by the course officials.
- The Japanese OC built a bunch of truly impressive venues, wow.
- A large number of venues are completely walkable in minutes, with many more within range of a solid dog walk distance (maybe a couple miles)
- Since the Ariake district is threaded by waterways, some of the bus routes are tricky, requiring multiple instances of 'three lefts to make a right' (the Japanese drive on the left side of the road) - and then the ride home is one right turn and a straight shot home. There was one route that took about 40 minutes in one direction, and 10 in the other.
- If we didn't already know this thanks to our phones, facial recognition has arrived; two of us mistakenly swapped credentials leaving the hotel, and the facial scan to get into the venue shut us both down. We just swapped back and all good.
- These Olympics would have been absolutely epic, beautiful, and inspiring under 'normal' conditions; at the close of the Games we often hear 'the best Olympics ever,' and from what we have seen, Japan had a shot at this accolade - probably save for the weather, which may have been understated during the bid process
- Many venues are very nearly empty; I counted 12 media people attending the 9am volleyball game between ROC and Argentina. It was pouring at the time, and it wasn't a premier event - lots more media arrived in time for the epic USA vs China match - but geesh.
- At the women's volleyball, the "Start List" included a lot of the standard information, but also included highest reach for Spikes and Blocks - it would probably be pretty interesting for rowing to list 2k erg times on start lists.
We should publish erg scores on our Start Lists
- The intro song for the US women's team was Baba O'Riley; teenage wasteland?
- Per yesterday's appreciation of the outdoor nature of our sport, being in the volleyball arena during the rainstorm this morning was welcome for sure, but stepping out into the daylight after two games felt like stepping out of a bar into the bright sun after a session of day-drinking.
- The typhoon served the Surfing events well; Chiba typically has small, mushy surf at this time of year, and they got some decent-sized surf the past couple days. It was soupy, disorganized storm surf, but still produced some tasty waves, and they were fine. Next year the surfing events will be held in Teahupo?o in Tahiti, which is part of French Polynesia, which may be a precursor of holding events in locations that are not necessarily central to the host city. Teahupo?o is about 10,000 miles from Paris. After that, it is almost inevitable that surfing will be held in man-made wave pools.
- The canoe slalom event was packed with rowers; we saw Matt Pinsent, James Tomkins, a German rowing photographer, and Cora Zillich; once a water sports person, always a water sports person.
The volleyball venue mid-competition