In what might have been the most inspiring race by a US crew of the day, the US men's pair of Michael DiSanto and Dariush Aghai lined up against the dominant Kiwi pair, the Dutch pair, and a batch of solid contenders, fell back into fifth, and then did an extended windup that had the announcers marveling at their 42 stroke per minute slash to the line to take the third of three advancing positions. I asked Aghai if the crew could have imagined themselves lining up against the NZ crew and then sprinting through for a qualifying spot earlier this summer.
row2k: You draw the New Zealand guys and then you sprint through the German crew today - coming into this summer, could you imagine yourself in this spot that you're in?
Aghai: You know, that's the perfect question. I think both of us, six months ago, never even expected to be here, let alone be racing these guys. So in that sense, there's a level of 'we're just happy to be here,' but you're also dealing with the fact that the two of us are very competitive, we've been rowing for a long time, and to a degree we know what we're doing.
We're realistic, we know that a medal's… unlikely. We were racing a lot of pairs who were putting in the time, together, for years, right? The two of us just got slapped together. We had been training, but separately, and doing a lot of other things. I think the A final is also a reach, but it's not unlikely, so we're gonna have to have an incredible race tomorrow.
And then the base goal is qualify the boat for next year. But you're absolutely right, six months ago we were both sitting on our hands doing some completely other things.
row2k: How did it play out on the course? They called your rate as 42 on the finish line.
Aghai: It was a little bumpy at the start, so we had to swallow that pill. If it's going to be bumpy, we might not get the traction we look for. We're little guys so we have to row a little bit higher, so sometimes because of that it's hard to keep the traction, and in that water it's tough.
We had a good first 500; I think we were kind of with the pack, maybe just at the back, and then in the second 500 a lot of boats got out on us, but we kept our cool. Mike's a smooth talker, he was saying 'We're good. We're good.' Even the tone of his voice is like, 'All good. We're cool. Just keep rowing, keep rowing. We got it, we're cool.'
And then with the 1000 he's said ' Let's give a little push.' And I think we were able to get that grip we were looking for and walk through I think it was Chile and Poland and Germany. I think Brazil had dropped off at that point. And we just kept it rolling because we had that grip, no moves really until the 500.
And then he said, “Alright in a few strokes we're gonna get going.” So in a few strokes we got going. We knew that the Germans would have a big push at the end. Earlier this summer, Ross James and I saw them in Varese at the World Cup, and that happened. They fell off in the middle and came on strong at the finish. So we knew it was coming.
So when he said, 'Time to go,' we just laid on the gas. And we saw them coming even more so we had to make a second push with about 200 to go, and I think that got us there.
row2k: Did you know you were at 42 beats per minute? Was it the kind of thing where it was like, okay throw everything at this?
Aghai: I think he and I, we're very different; I think Mike knew we were and was able to kind of pace himself and pace the field and keep the boat stable. I was just swinging for the fences to make sure we got through. So we played our different roles in the boat quite well [laughs].
row2k: So when you got the heat sheet that says, “Okay, yeah New Zealand, Germany, etc.”, what went through your head? Did you take a gulp when you first saw it?
Aghai: Honestly we were both pretty excited. It's cool to race the Kiwis. I mean, these guys are going down in history, so it's cool to line up next to them and see if we can hang onto them, and race them, and learn something. I think that we knew that the Dutch would be ahead of us but not unstoppable. I think if we see them again in better water, I think we can keep up with them. With the Germans and Chile, you know Chile won Pan Ams, so we knew that they'd be right there. So I think it was like, cool, but, you know, we have to have a good race.
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09/03/2015 7:03:59 PM