row2k was at the start today taking the photos you’ll see here, but we do have some of our tireless (or tiresome, depending on your perspective) observations from the regatta site.
The high number of entries in several events has led to an exhausting racing schedule – the light men’s single, the men’s single, and the men’s pair and double all had six heats each – six heats!
As a result, much of the racing was done on five-minute centers, with the occasional 10-minute center. On the whole it went off well, although there were certainly more warnings (false starts) issued for being late to the line than I’ve seen in past Worlds. With only 3-4 minutes to get into your lane and lock on, time is tight.
The Indian ML1x came completely off the blocks during the polling of the crews; he backed on just in time for the horn to go off.
In particular, the men’s single is an example of the disparities between individual athletes; while two rowers can be very close in speed, it is very apparent how much closer to their full capacity some are rowing all the way down the course. When a sculler has both physical capacity and the wherewithal to row to the edge of the capacity, they quickly put the field behind them. There are only a few of these folks in the sport, but it is a stark reality that is unmistakable from the starting platform.
Mean draw of the day: Neykova vs. Waddell in the women’s single. Keykova took it early and ran away to an eight-second victory.
Another one: Hacker vs. Yanakiev vs Ziska; yeesh.
Vaclav Chalup won his heat today; the perennial bridesmaid
Canadian 2- bowman Wayne Pommen won his first race since breaking his hand in the horrific Boat Race crash; he and Scott Frandsen won their heat today.
Comment on the starting dock, in reference to the brothers pair of Skelin and Skelin: “I’m going to go photograph Skelin and whatsisname.”
On the boat racks, the convention is to list the country and abbreviation of each country; for example: “Uruguay URU,” or “Germany GER.” So when one set of racks read “SCG SCG,” row2k was dispatched to figure out who SCG was. The answer: Serbia-Montenegro. Now you know. It also turns out that the SCG crews are packed with US collegiate rowers.
Some numbers for today:
The US men’s pair gives away 100 pounds to the British men’s pair (I’m not up on what that equals in stone…)
Only a couple of the 42 heats today were very close today in the cutoff between qualifiers – the last heat of the LM1x, where the Slovakian sculler beat the Portuguese sculler by only 0.43 seconds, and the fourth heat of the M2x, which was decided by 1.83 seconds (not all that close). All other margins were 2-3 seconds or more.
Save for the women’s double, which sent three crews to the semis from each heat, all heats today were one-to-advance, everyone else to the reps affairs.
Forty-one year old Italian lightweight Carlo Gaddi is racing in his 20th World Championships starting tomorrow.
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: