Conditions today were perfect - a bit on the warm side, but with almost no wind, exceedingly flat water (except when the big boats plowed through), high sun (the launch drivers were using their umbrellas to protect themselves from sunburn today rather than from the more typical British rain), and an overall relaxed atmosphere. The assembly of the venue isn't quite complete, and there are cherry-pickers and whatnot here and there, but it actually seems like fairly normal stuff (hoisting cameras up, putting tabletops in press areas, laying cable, etc.) - and otherwise the place looks great. At this Olympics, it seems like the television folks have commandeered almost all of the choice locations, sometimes too much so, but they pretty much own the Olympics anyway, so there you go.
Many crews are doing their two daily practice rows in one "transport session" - that is, they come down and row early, go snack and stretch and recover in the boathouse, go back out after a couple hours, then all go home for the day, with everything over and done by early afternoon. In the photos posting today, you'll see a crew early in the gallery, and again late in the gallery; I posted up on the medals docks from 7:30-1, so caught both practices for a lot of the crews.
Folks are doing all kinds of training - some are just plucking their way up and down the course, others are throwing down full 1500m pieces, others are sparring, and still others are doing bungee rows.
The Australian quad, for example, had three bungees on their hull - maybe one guy in the boat felt a little tired, so didn't put his on under his seat. The South African four got their work in by doing miles - they did at least 16k (four trips), and I think might have done 20k.
NZL was in a sparring mode today - Drysdale was piecing alongside the women's single, with his wolf whistle at every finish echoing around the venue such that almost all the workers stopped to figure out where it was coming from. The Kiwi pair was racing against the men's four, and it looked like the four had spotted them a little too generous a starting margin, as the pair was holding off the four coming into the finish line area. Check out the photos, and you'll see no one was holding back, whew.
The Canadian crews put in a batch of laps, all without the signature maple leaf on the blades just yet. Tradition dictates that crews can race with the blades painted red and white, but you don't get the maple leaf until you are on the team and racing - you have to think the maple leaf stickers are busting out soon, tho.
Overall, technique has converged internationally somewhat - there are fewer crews rowing very different styles - but the Romanian women continue to row the ultra-fast hands, ultra slow slide rhythm they have for decades now. The Romanian pair must have been rowing 11 or 12 strokes per minutes for much of their row, and it does look odd - tho as anyone who has seen them knows, it sure doesn't look so odd when they are blazing down the course.
Interestingly, the Canadian women are rowing a somewhat similar rhythm, unless they were doing it as a drill when they came by; they have had a great summer so far, so it seems to be working.
You can always rely on Marcel Hacker to keep things real - he was rowing with something like a porkpie hat - with a brim of black, red and yellow - on his outing today.
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