Julho 18, 2009
More success in Lucerne
- © Zofka
Its been a crazy few weeks with four different Cities/Countries, four different regattas and four drug tests just for good measure.
Lucerne is always nice to come back to. It is a very pretty city and the Rotsee is a nice place to row, they call it Gods gift to rowing as it is a natural lake that is just long enough and wide enough to fit a rowing course. The team came here on a high after success in Munich and Henley and everybody was ken to keep the momentum going.
Friday was heats day and all looked to be on track, the woman’s and men’s pairs won their heats to go through to the final, the men’s double, Duncan Grant, lightweight men’s double, Emma Twigg and myself all won our heats to go direct to Semi final. The woman’s double were third to go to repechage, the men’s lightweight four were 4th in their heat and raced the repechage later in the day to qualify for semi final and finally the woman’s quad raced for lanes finishing fourth but going directly to the final. So all looked to be on track to try and repeat our performance in Munich.
Saturday was semis and repechage day for some of the crews and training day for those that had gone directly to the final. Duncan, The men’s double, Lightweight Men’s double and myself all won our races to go to final. I raced Synek and while he pushed all the way I was always able to hold my lengths advantage from start to finish and get the fastest time. Emma Twigg finished second to the favourite Knapkova and the woman’s double finished second in their repechage to qualify for the final. The only casualty was the lightweight men’s four who finished 5th to be the only crew to miss out on the A final. This was already an improvement on Munich where we had two crews in the B finals.
Duncan had his final Saturday afternoon and once again started the kiwi success off in fine fashion leading from start to finish to win his 2nd gold of the year. Sunday and we awoke to fairly nice conditions. Was a little overcast early on but warmed up and the wind dropped from the head winds we had been getting all week. The men’s lightweight four raced their B final finishing 6th (12th overall). That was to be the only blip for the day. The woman’s and men’s pairs both lead from start to finish to win comfortably and show they will be the crews to beat in 6 weeks time, the woman earned enough points to take out the world cup despite only going to two of the three events, the men have now beaten the favoured Brits 3 from 3 and haven’t really been pushed yet. The woman’s double had a good race to finish 5th, this is an improvement from their 7th in Munich. The Lightweight men’s double kept the momentum going taking their record to 2 golds from two world cups. Next up was Emma Twigg and she backed up her Munich silver with a second silver behind Knapkova although she had a very close race all the way with the Chinese sculler. The men’s double were next to race and trying to improve on their Munich silver, this was arguably the race of the day as four crews battled it out all the way, there was never more than 0.5sec between the leading four and unfortunately our boys were the crew to miss the medals. They finished 0.5sec behind first so know they have the speed to compete and just need to find a little bit more in the next 6 weeks to win.
I was next and had to try and make the gold count equal to our Munich efforts, I felt good and was looking forward to it. Before the race I picked Tufte as my biggest threat and thought Synek would also be challenging. From the start I got a slight lead and was able to sit fairly comfortably in front of the field. At the 1000M Tufte was a length behind, Synek and Maeyens were also there and the rest of the field weren’t far behind. In the second 1000M Tufte turned up the heat as he made attack after attack, I always felt in control and managed to respond to everything he threw at me, initially I opened up the gap slightly between us before he brought it back to just over a length toward the end. This had the effect of breaking the race apart with Maeyens holding on for the 3rd spot but finishing 9seconds behind. I was very happy to win, keeping my unbeaten record intact this year and taking the mental advantage into the worlds in six weeks time. This is the first time I have gone unbeaten during the year to this point and first time I’ve won two world cup races in a year. It is extra pleasing knowing that I took such a big break after last year so am still very confident I will get even faster between now and the worlds.
The day finished on a high with the woman’s quad having a great race to take a bronze to add to their efforts in Munich, this was a much better result though as there was a stronger field and they beat the GB quad that finished with silver in Munich and beat them at Henley. Overall it took our medal tally to 5 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze, it was only 1 silver behind our best ever world cup (Munich this year) and put us at the top of the medal table beating both the big guns of rowing GB and Germany. It was particularly pleasing as it backed up our results in Munich and in stronger fields. It is certainly good to be in this position going into the world champs, we are now the crews to beat and we know if we can keep the improvements going between now and the worlds it will make it tough on our competitors to close the gaps. In the single Tufte is looking like the danger man this year, he is an expert at preparing himself for the big event and is going very well for this time in the season. It would be my pick that either Synek or Campbell will be the other ones to watch and baring something unexpected the medals should be shared between the four of us in six weeks time.
We are now in Agery in Switzerland training. It is a very pretty village up in the mountains with a lake that is about 2K by 5K we have a great set up here, although the water hasn’t behaved itself so far. We learnt a good lesson today that when the storm lights go on get back to shore ASAP, we were about 4K from home and had to row in the southern ocean for the last 3K, we all eventually got home safely although 3 of the 7 boats ended up sinking and having to walk the last bit along the road.
Well that’s about all from me for now, will be back in touch closer to the world champs to let you know how the team is shaping up and let you know what to expect at the world champs.
Mahe
