After her quarterfinal on Wednesday, we talked to US single sculler Gevvie Stone about her race, about the upcoming semifinal, about the potentially uber-deadly 2016 qualifier next year, and about the unique challenges of racing the single, which lasts the full eight days of the regatta and has potentially five races from heats to the finals.
After what seemed like a tentative start to the regatta in the heats on Sunday, US sculler Gevvie Stone looked much more on form today, placing second in her quarterfinal to strong favorite Kim Crow of Australia. Stone said that the crosswind and chop in the first 1000 had her spinning her wheels a little bit, and she reached the 500 in fourth place, but that when the water got a bit better, she was able to find a rhythm and make some progress.
"When the water got better at the thousand I finally felt like this is how I wanted it to go," she said. "I knew that (Lithuania sculler) Lina and (Dutch sculler) Lisa had great sprints in the heat, so I knew to expect that. I didn't have a huge lead on Lithuania, so I knew I knew I wanted to bump it up a little bit and I was able to do that."
From there, she held onto her lead and then waited for the horn from Kim Crow coming across the line to let her know where she was. The sound never made it to her ears.
"I figured I was in the last 15 strokes, so I kicked it along a little bit higher, a little bit faster," she said. "I knew I would hear Kimmy's horn about four to five strokes before mine, but it seems there was enough crowd noise that I couldn't hear the horn for Kimmy. When I didn't hear it I was like, this is the never-ending course! Where is the end?!? When I finally heard by horn I thought, whew!
The men's and women's singles make for really long weeks not only because there are heats/reps/quarters/semis/finals, but the events also take up the full eight days of the regatta – the heats are on Sunday, and the final on the following Sunday. I asked Stone how she adjusted to this after a career of high school and college rowing.
"It's definitely really hard to peak for a week," she said. "I don't think that there is any good way to be on your top speed for an entire eight days. So I was not fully rested for the heat because I hoped I would get through. It ended up working out, because I knew that this race and the semifinal would be all about owning the qualification spots. They're going to be brutal.
"There are so many fast people out there when you look at the depth now versus four years ago in Bled. Or at least, Kimmy's way out front and the rest of us are just so much tighter together. With Fie (Danish sculler Erichsen), you have the Olympic silver medalist not qualifying to the semis."
We talked about how New Zealand sculler Fiona Burke did not make the qualification cut, which will most likely put Emma Twigg in the position of going to the so-called Regatta of Death next summer. And then from here only the top nine qualify, so everyone will be trying to book a trip to the A final to clinch a spot and avoid what will be a hellish B final.
"The qualification Regatta next year is going to be ridiculous," she continued. "No one wants to be there, because Emma Twigg's going to be there, and Fie's going to be there and no one wants that. So it's going to be o be a battle on Friday."
Returning to the challenge of rowing hard over eight days, I asked Stone how she approaches it, what she has learned during her time in the single, and how she might advise a young sculler to approach a regatta like this one.
"The first time I raced the eight-day Regatta was in Bled (in 2011), and at that point we didn't really know how to do it," she recalled. "We knew that we handled it wrong, because I was peaked for the heat and then for the semifinal I was just tired.
"So my dad (and coach Gregg) talked to Harry Parker a bunch leading into London about how to do it physiologically, and Harry had a bunch of advice for my dad. You just have to balance some hard strokes with decreasing volume in order to keep your muscles ready but be rested."
Stone rows again in the semifinals on Friday; see the draw here.
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