We all know that rowing is an outdoor sport, but it was really an outdoor sport at the Worlds on Karapiro today, whew. Racing was suspended after the heats of the LW2x at 10:30am, 5 races into the regatta, and then cancelled for good at 3pm this afternoon. Ultimately, it was the right call, but whenever FISA has to make a decision like this, you feel for them somewhat as they're walking a tight, tight line between fairness to athletes and crews and the pressures of live TV, advertisers and venue scheduling.
Tomorrow's schedule essentially adds today's racing and the original Monday schedule; today's cancellations has the most serious implications for the events originally scheduled to have heats today and reps tomorrow, the light men's double and the men's and women's single.
As rough as the water was today, athletes were still going for it. Check out our Sunday AM gallery for photos of crews maybe not rowing as clean as they were able, but nevertheless winning the fight. A lot of crews here are still getting good mileage out of using their Athens Olympics foul-weather boat add-ons and modified splash guards.
Ursula Grobler and Abby Broughton got their doubling bid off to a positive start here, racing in what turned out to be the last race of the morning. The crew got out well and established themselves in one of the two direct qualifying spots for the semi, then fought off the Germans (and the conditions) to bring it home. Racing today was anything but easy (check out our galleries for evidence), and their win in the heat was probably as much a credit to their excellent athleticism as to their technique.
The other US crew in action today was the light men's pair of Evan Tsourtsoulas and Mike Nucci, who acquitted themselves well in finishing 3rd in their heat; they'll row again in the reps in two days time.
Some great high-tech inroads at the racing here; one of the premier "racing animation" designers from the NZ yachting world is on hand, and is creating fairly high-value racing animations for the Jumbotrons, using the in-race GPS data and overlaying this with a google-maps view of the racecourse. Pretty cool, and apparently the tech crew is storing and making available the racing data, literally stroke-for-stroke, to coaches to review after the racing.
Until today's delay, things appear to have gotten off to a great start here; apparently, the team managers meeting at the start of the regatta was the shortest on record. Here's hoping that the wind settles a bit for tomorrow.
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