Much to the chagrin of the photographer corps, the sun came out this morning, and there was light in abundance just when racing was at its most scarce. I left for the course on a sunny mid-morning day where racing does not start until 4pm, several of the Pool photographers asked me why I was going. I replied "this is the first sunlight we have had, and there's no racing! I'm just going to have a look around." They nodded with understanding; the photographers have had a tough go of getting really dramatic images with conditions that looked more like nighttime than any mid-afternoon racing I have seen. You still cannot see the mountains beyond the finish line, which are very dramatic - or so I am told.
When I arrived, I set up in the press grandstands to write up a post for this space while watching crews practice and coaches scold and exhort them. Some folks are paddling, some are throwing in hard strokes, others drilling extensively.
And a few crews out here seem clearly to be looking for answers to perhaps unsolvable problems. For example, despite finishing second, French single sculler Sophie Balmary struggled mightily to maintain consistent form in yesterday's quarterfinals, and she is out here now blasting out long pieces that could well pose more questions than provide answers.
I don't have any details, as the information flow is minimal at this time of day, but it sure looked like the Dutch bowman was either having a holiday or a fairly serious problem in practice today. Hopefully he is okay.
The US women's crews were launching, the pair in their racing lineup and the eight with Brett Sickler in the five seat per convention. It may be a bit of inductive reasoning, but an 11am launch would make it appear the crew may have gone back to their standard three-a-day practice schedule; with four down days until the pair races again, and five until the eight races, picking up your normal training routine sounds very comfortable.
As is also the practice back home, coach Tom Terhaar appeared to follow the eight for a couple k, bicycle back to pick up the pair, follow them for a few more k, then pick up the eight again. The crews from every country looked quite focused; the caution and tentativeness of the pre-heats/taper period is gone, and there is an urgency to every stroke that is unmistakable.
The organizers are using the time today to keep everything in working order; on a hot day, to have the job of unstopping fountain spouts with your toes wouldn't seem to be a terrible assignment.
The large spreads in margin in the singles events in particular will start to disappear as the week goes on; as Thor Nilssen has observed, these differences are going to be the price of expanding the sport, at least in the near term. The differences in resources among the crews is considerable; witness this quote from Cameroon sculler Paul Etia Ndoumbe: "This is my first Olympic Games, it is an honor to participate and I thank FISA for giving me the chance to do so. It is a pleasure for me to row here for my own personal evolution. I started rowing in 2006 when I watched the Cameroon Cup, and I'm the first person from Cameroon to row at the Olympic Games. I'm famous in my country and especially in my city, Douala. At home we have much older boats and I'm happy to have a good boat here."
Lots of kayakers on the course today; one distinct advantage to the forward-facing kayak is that traffic patterns are rendered almost completely unnecessary; crews are going in opposite directions in the same lanes, racing four across in both directions, hugging the shore completely out of the traffic. The main feature of the traffic rules for these crews seems to be related to boat speed; the singles have a couple lanes, the quads another entirely. Otherwise, everyone is just paddling up and down the course without much concern.
As tedious and repetitive as rowing can be, I don't know if I could handle being a race kayaker; sitting up leaning forward and just going side to side for stroke after stroke seems like it would be even tougher to tolerate for practice after practice, year after year.
Last kayaking observation: as shown in the photo, the kayakers hands come as close as possible actually to dipping into the water.
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: