Whew! Online at long last; sorry for the delay and suspense.
Of the seven years I competed internationally, only once did I arrive at the course to find the conditions that had been predicted as "the prevailing conditions."
"This is a tailwind course in September," we would hear, from everyone from the coaches to friends who had raced there and locals on the Internet. Sure enough, we would arrive to howling headwind conditions.
This year, everyone called for a headwind, so I expected to roll down to the course on Tuesday to a brisk tail. This year, the trend did not hold.
A powerful headwind swept directly down the course, gathering considerable strength at the 750 mark (that's 750 into the race) as it was squeezed under a low bridge. Conditions weren't quite white-capping, but the water was turned black with wakes and chop.
The wind and intemittent rain peaked on Thursday, with a morning row that had some crews posting 2:45 500 meter splits at steady state. We're talking HEADWIND. By Thursday night, the wind had abated slightly. Checking weather maps, the low that had brought three days of headwinds and inclement weather was passing through, and we could expect a tail and maybe even a little sun for the next couple days, but
Meanwhile, intersquad brushes and speed orders were going off in the training lanes, with lane 6 reserved for the big boats (4's and 8's) and lanes 4 and 5 reserved for smaller boats. Lanes 1 and 2 are retrun lanes, and lane 3 is closed. The course is your basic basin bathtub race course, very well appointed, with eight full bays for the crews, changing areas, two sizeable grandstands stretching from the finish line to the 1750 (250 to go ) mark on both sides of the race course, topped by a long row of flags from the participating delegations.
When we arrived on Tuesday, the course was almost ours alone, with some Australian and Canadian crews appearing late in the day. By Wednesday morning, the Italian crews had arrived, and by Wednesday afternoon, it appeared that about half the delegations were onsite. By Thursday, we had a full contingent of crews trainiing on the course.
There have been some disasters, as usual; the lightweight men's pair, with whom I've been working, saw their boat arrive "a foot short," as Mike Vespoli said. In transit, the boat lost it's bow, rudder, part of the splash guard, a piece of gunwale, and a bunch of skin from the hull. Mike Vespoli and US boatman Brad Woodrick went to work on the boat immediately, while the pair got into a brand new Empacher, so no worries.
Yesterday, I saw the Italian lightweight 8 and an Italian quad banging heads, a bunch of US crews zooming out pieces side by side, and loads of easy training, skill work, and short blasts. The rowing seems to be of unusual high quality; it's not very easy to pick out any crews that are not up to the ever-rising international standards. A few crews are rowing a rather stylized stroke, but on the whole, the rowing is solid and very crisp.
This morning, a load of US crews are banging heads, matched up by the relative speed of their events: the men's coxed four and the women's 8; the lightweight men's 8 and the open weight quad, the lightweight quad and the lightweight straight four, and others. Off to see the racing.
Comments | Log in to comment |
There are no Comments yet
|
row2k's Worlds coverage is brought to you in part by:
row2k's Worlds coverage is brought to you in part by: