Website de Mahe Drysdale

O Campeão do Mundo de Skiff, Mahe Drysdale, iniciou esta semana a divulgação do seu novo website oficial. O atleta Neo-Zelandês convida todos a visitarem o seu novo website que, embora esteja online à 5 meses, só agora está a ser divulgado por Mahe sentir que já está totalmente operacional.

No novo site podemos ficar a par dos melhores resultados, os proximos eventos, resultados, noticias, fotos e participar no Livro de Visitas deixando uma mensagem ao Mahe.

As ultimas noticias informam-nos que Mahe Drysdale afinal nao vai competir na 2ª Taça do Mundo em Munique devido à sua lesão na coluna, entre a L4 e L5. Embora Mahe esteja já a treinar 2x por semana, a sua viagem para Munique foi atrasada e ainda não é hoje que vemos Mahe Drysdale de novo em competição.

O  Laststroke publicou durante algum tempo o Mahe Drysdale Report, um resumo enviado pelo Mahe Drysdale com as suas ultimas noticias. Com o lançamento do seu website, deixaremos de publicar este Report uma vez que estas noticias poderão ser lidas no site oficial do atleta.

Para mais informações e noticias visite: http://www.mahedrysdale.com

Noticias relacionadas

• Noticias Recentes de Remo
• Worlds Finals- 4 is the number of the day
• Mahe Drysdale: Semi-finals
• Rowing World Champs- Heats
• Worlds preview-ready to race

• No ultimo fim de semana decorreu a Descida da Ria em Aveiro, com a vitória do CNIDH no 8+M e uma combinação do Ginásio e Galitos venceu no 4xF. O Sport publicou 2 videos e varias fotos no seu site (link). Parceria Ginásio Litocar / Galitos brilhante na Descida da Ria é o titulo da noticia no site Ginásio Remo. Resultados da prova no blogue Red Force e ARBL
• Rowperfect publicou uma entrevista com Mahe Drysdale
• A equipa nacional da Dinarmarca e da Suécia estão em Avis.
• Vários remadores da Armenia, Georgia, Mexico, Paraguai, Venezuela, Sudão e Suécia, realizaram um estágio em Piediluco (link), com apoio da FISA (Thor Nilsen – Director Técnico) , o treinador Suiço Leif Pettersson e ainda o consultor de desenvolvimento da FISA Ricardo Ibarra. Estes remadores participam agora no Memorial Paolo D’Aloja. A equipa nacional de remo de Portugal falhou a presença devido ao cancelamento dos voos.
• A Rowperfect abriu um concurso para o design de algumas brochuras (link). O valor do prémio são 150$. O conurso está no site 99 Designs, detalhes aqui.

Mais noticias em breve

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It’s been a great year for the team and personally, it was great to finish it off with the most successful World Championships New Zealand has ever had.

It was a credit to the team that everyone managed to step up on the big occasion. The fact five of the kiwi crews went into the Championships as the favourites for gold and we won four gold medals and a Bronze will be a great learning curve for everyone and will prepare us to handle the added pressure that comes from being the crew everyone wants to beat (World Champion) when we start racing internationally again next year.

This year I have been very impressed with everyone in the team, firstly how everyone has got out and pushed themselves to new heights. What makes the results more remarkable is this team is very young (I am the oldest by 2 years), there are only 5 members (before this world championships) that had previously won a medal at world championship or Olympic level. In November last year it was looking like we would struggle to win two medals, let alone five and that’s neglecting the fact we have other crews also very much in the medal hunt. It is for these reasons I think this team has a very good future between now and 2012.

Now for the results, Robin Tinga started the New Zealand day off on Saturday with a solid 5th place in the adaptive single, he was in 3rd for the first half of the race.

The Woman’s Pair were next, what a race and a way to start the Olympic event program. This was the tightest woman’s pair final I have ever seen, our girls lost half a length in the first 500M. While this usually wouldn’t be an issue, in this race it was the difference between Gold and Bronze. All six crews were involved in battling it out all the way down the course, Rebecca Scown and Emma Feathery tried everything to get back on terms with the USA and Romania. Try as they might they couldn’t quite get level, in the end the top three crews opened close to a length on 4th and all finished within 0.7 sec, that is a very tight race and while they still came away with Bronze (which is an awesome result for a first time combination) I think they will feel it could have been even better. They will come back stronger and more determined next year.

The Men’s Pair raced next. Eric Murray and Hamish Bond were unbeaten this year and with the margins they had beaten their competitors by in the build up races, were very strong favourites for the gold. They flew out of the start and opened up a big lead going through the 1000M mark, being well under world best time speed. The Brits are a very strong crew and weren’t going to let them have it easily, they fought back and at one stage closed the gap to under a length, it was a nervous moment for the spectators but our boys were just playing and soon started to open the gap. They won by around a length to remain unbeaten and take away their second World Title (first in pair), they both were in four that won in 2007.

Next up were the Men’s Double, this is a tight field with the top four all finishing within half a length in Lucerne. This was going to be a tight one, it ended up a battle between Estonia, Germany, France and our boys (Matthew Trott and Nathan Cohen). All crews led at some stage during the race, into the last 500M the lead was still changing. In the end half a length separated all these four crews. Unfortunately our guys were the crew that missed the medals with a very credible 4th (this is the best ever worlds result for both athletes). While fourth is a good result, any other day they could have been in the medals and it is always hard when it is such a close race, as you will always think through the what ifs.

Emma Twigg has had a good year this year, stepping up a new level and showing she can compete with the best. Saturday was no exception. Emma got out with the rest of the field and it ended up as the tightest Woman’s single sculls race I have seen in recent years. The Chinese sculler led out before blowing up, Katherine Grainger the experienced GB sculler took the challenge next, Karsten sat within striking distance, Twigg was sitting next to Karsten. Knapkova (who has dominated all year) seemed happy to let others control the race. In the end the wily old Karsten sprinted through for Gold, Grainger held on for Silver while Knapkova just held off Twigg for Bronze. Twigg went 11seconds faster than she has ever gone before and missed out on Bronze by 0.5sec so overall a great result but again there will be a little disappointment as she would have felt she was so close to the podium. It is however a big improvement on her 9th place at the Olympics.

Men’s Single was the last A final race Saturday. Conditions were very bumpy in the last 500M caused by a side tail wind that was pretty strong. Going onto the water I was feeling fairly confident and wanted to finish off the season on a good note. A win would give me four world titles (one off the record 5 by Kolbe) but also get me through the season unbeaten (something I’ve never achieved). The conditions reminded me a lot of Eton (where I set the World Best time in 2006, 6:35.40) and after looking at some of the times of the day I thought it might require the World Best time to win it. As usually happens in the single, in the final it quite often comes down to a two horse race at the end and I predicted Campbell or Synek were the likely challengers although you never write Tufte off.

As expected Campbell led off. I was right with him and Synek was also in the picture. It was pretty tight and going through the 1000M I just had my bow in front. The third 500M is my strength and I managed to open up the lead to about a length over Campbell with Synek still in touch. By this stage the water was getting tricky, the body was starting to scream and concentration was very important to make sure there were no mistakes. Synek started to struggle and it was down to Campbell and me for the gold. Campbell continued to push and we were both having some bad strokes as the waves increased in size. About 300M from the finish I was still in front, Campbell was within striking distance and wasn’t going to give up his chance at gold. I had two pretty bad strokes and Campbell started to close the gap. I tried to take the rating up but was struggling to keep it clean, Campbell was still closing. With 100M to go I still had a lead but it was being closed. I’m not quite sure what happened, either Alan caught a bad stroke or he ran out of gas and the gap stopped closing. From here it was a matter of getting to the line without an error. Thankfully the first buzzer was mine, I had done it, first unbeaten season and fourth world title. The icing on the cake was lowering the world best time by a further 2 seconds to 6:33.35. I am not surprised that it was beaten considering the conditions, the competitiveness of the race and my times in training this year. What I was surprised about was how much I beat it by. To be honest I didn’t believe I was capable of going 6:33 this year.

Campbell has certainly come on this year, this is his first world’s medal and he has shown that he will be one of the toughest competitors in the next three years. Alan was under the old best time by about 1 second and Synek also finished under 6:40 being the first time 3 people have gone sub 6:40 in the same race, making it undoubtedly the fastest race in history. Its looking like sub 6:30 has to be possible between now and London in the right conditions.

This year has been a bit of a dream for me really. I took a big break after the Olympics last year, reflected and made some decisions for the future. In December I had a sit down meeting with the High Performance group at Rowing NZ and discussed my last four years in the single and my future. It was a very honest and open discussion and from my point of view I came away very excited about the future and for the first time I felt like we were both working toward the same goal and I had their support. Since then I have been very happy and our relationship has been the strongest it ever has, there are still things we disagree on but that will always happen and is a positive. That is the basis to my happiness this year. Add to that a young team that are very enthusiastic, have fun and are a joy to be around, some added motivation after last year and a renewed vigour after my break and it all adds up to a very fun and successful year.

It sometimes takes a failure for you to step back and review things. Beijing was my wake up and I am pretty confident I know what it is going to take to be at my best in London 2012. There is no room for excuses or compromises at this level. I have a great team behind me and have Dick Tonks coaching me again (He has 3 Olympic gold medals as coach and too many world championships to count) and it seems the technical changes are paying dividends early on. There is no room for weakness and one of the things I realised after Beijing was I need to step up a couple of levels. One level to stay ahead of the competition and the second level to allow me a little bit of buffer room in case something unexpected happens. I feel like I have improved already this year and my times have been the best they ever have. The exciting thing is I can improve even further. As I get older physical improvements get less and technical improvements become more important. Physically this year I was in good shape but not at 100%, I am still suffering a bit with fitness after the time I had off last year, plus the last four weeks I have had a stress fracture in one of my ribs. While I have managed to get through this without it greatly impacting on my performance, it has been very painful and getting worse as I kept training with it. Thankfully during the races I only noticed it for the first part of the race before the pain in the rest of my body took my mind away from it. Once I improve my fitness and get my rib right it should give me a little more speed, however having the rib issue and still winning certainly built my confidence after last year. It showed I could handle the unexpected.

Saturday afternoon was good fun as we caught up with all the supporters that came over and enjoyed watching the rest of the kiwi crews complete their B finals. The woman’s double performed well, it was a tight race but they managed to sprint to the line to just take the win to finish 7th overall. The woman’s quad repeated that feat with a comfortable win and 7th Place. The Men’s four were next, it was again a very tight battle, unfortunately they couldn’t get through the other crews in the final 500M finishing 3rd and 9th overall, still a great effort for a young crew.

Sunday dawned a new day and after Saturdays results our lightweight boys were keen to join the success, we only had two crews racing. Duncan Grant in the lightweight men’s single was first, he dominated his race, leading from early on to end up winning his third successive title in the lightweight single, this was arguably his greatest win as he beat some very tough competition with two scullers from the 2nd and 3rd place doubles at the Olympics competing and finishing behind him with the silver and bronze.

Last kiwi crew to compete were the lightweight men’s double. Pete Taylor and Storm Uru were another crew that have dominated their event this year. Sunday was no exception; while they didn’t lead from the start they soon made their presence felt in the second half of the race and won by around a length to make it New Zealand’s most successful World Championships.

We took home 4 gold’s, 1 Bronze, 2 4ths and a number of crews on the edge of the A finals (equal 1st on the medal table with German). It’s a great start to the new Olympic cycle but also only step 1. We have a lot of work ahead of us and have to try and keep the environment and attitudes in check to make sure we can continue this type of success over the future years. It is very exciting when you consider that there is not a huge amount of experience at the top level in this team and I was very impressed with the way the younger members held themselves and performed despite it being the first time a lot of these athletes have gone into a world champs with high expectations on their heads. This was a very special win for me personally, it’s my best ever season internationally and a great way to start the new Olympic cycle. While I was pretty happy winning and you could see the smiles to prove it, I got more joy out of watching the younger crews do well and seeing the elation on their faces when they achieved their goals.

Just before I go I want to thank everyone that made an effort to come to Poland to support us, its great to have the biggest support group in the crowd being kiwis. I would also like to thank everyone that sent texts and emails to support me during the week it is awesome having everyone behind you. I would also like to thank SPARC, my sponsors and the individuals that support me in what I do. These people all make it possible for me to focus 100% on my rowing and are a major part of why I am now a four time world champion. Thank you and I look forward to racing in front of all of you next November at home in Karapiro, hopefully making it number five.

I will be back after my holiday when I embark on my overseas trip again to compete in the international long distance circuit. It all begins on the Gold Coast in an NZ eight when we go to take on the Aussies on the 10th of October.

Mahe

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Its been a bit of a mixed bag with some very promising results as well as a few disappointments.

The Lightweight Men’s Four is the first crew to finish at this regatta, they finished 4th in their repechage putting them through to the C final. They ended up finishing 4th in that today to give them a final position of 16th. This is a new crew this year and while they are in a tough event, they are a little disappointed with their efforts but will learn from the experience and hopefully now all understand the level that is required to compete on the world stage.

The Woman’s Quad also missed out on the A final in their repechage. They had probably their best start to a race this year, but were unable to maintain the momentum through the middle of the race and faded to 5th place meaning they go to the B final tomorrow where they will attempt to go for at best 7th in the world.

The Men’s Four faired better in the repechage winning it in a very tight race. This progressed them to the semi finals. They raced very well in the semi always being in touch with 3rd place and an A final qualifying spot, unfortunately in the last 500M they weren’t able to pass the Slovenians and finished a very close 4th to just miss out. Their semi was arguably the tougher of the two and they ended up with the 5th fastest time of the day which will hopefully give this crew a good boost in the coming years, they are very young and have a lot of potential so don’t think it will be long before you see them in an A final. They will contest the B final tomorrow to attempt to finish 7th in the world.

The Woman’s Double went straight through to their semi final. It was a tight race to start with then three crews started to establish themselves in qualifying positions, unfortunately the kiwis couldn’t stay with the pace and finished 4th to put them into the B final as one of the favourites.

The news then got a whole lot better for the kiwi team. Despite an uncharacteristically slow start by the Woman’s Pair they kept their composure and rowed through the whole field, to control the race and win their semi setting them up as one of the favourites for the final tomorrow (Saturday).

The Men’s Pair had a fairly straight forward time in semi final two of the pairs. They led from start to finish clocking the fastest time and showing they are still the favourites in the final. GB certainly look to have improved from Lucerne although I’m still picking our boys for the gold.

The Men’s Double had a great race, they battled it out all the way with Estonia and Germany, these three crews all finished in a photo finish in Lucerne with the Brits and our boys finished worst off with a 4th, this time they turned the tables and finished a very close 2nd to the Germans. They have certainly put themselves out there as capable of a medal tomorrow. This field is so tight that if things go there way gold is certainly not out of the question.

Emma Twigg raced just before me yesterday; she was in a good battle all the way with the two favourites for the title, Karsten and Knapkova. In the end she finished 3rd but will be pleased to be in the A final after last years B final at the Olympics. If Emma races well on Saturday anything could happen.

Men’s single is pretty much unchanged from last year. Semi final one contained Campbell, Synek and Tufte (5th, 2nd and 1st in Beijing respectively). Campbell led from start to finish, Synek just lurked in behind him while Tufte seemed to struggle ending up in a battle for a qualifying spot with the fast finishing Greek. Our semi looked weaker on paper (3rd, 4th and 6th from Beijing) but ended up being highly competitive. I got an early lead and once I got in front was able to control the race. The guys behind certainly never let me fully relax, first the Argentinean had a go, Tim Maeyens then took control of 2nd before attacks came from both Karonen and the German, Rocher, (he is an up and comer) and profited when a huge wash came across the course at around the 1400M mark. I was happy to have a lead and took it easy through the wash to make sure there were no mistakes, Maeyens got through OK but Karonen didn’t handle it well, giving Rocher an opportunity to open up a slight led that he continued to consolidate to the finish line. (the wash was caused by a boat that broke down in the middle of the course with all the available boats around rushing in to tow it off the course before we hit it).

So 5 of the 6 Olympic finalists are in the A final and I know all these guys very well. After watching Tufte this week a betting man would probably write him off, I wont be doing that unless I open up at least a 5 sec lead on him in the final (that is unlikely so watch him) he is an expert of getting it right on the big occasion. Campbell has proved he is still quick and is having a good year, he is likely to lead out and be in contention at the finish I will be watching closely. Synek is the unknown, he will either be a medallist or out the back door, he looked very dangerous for the first time this year in the semi. Again I will be watching closely and hopefully will be able to put him out of the picture early on. If he is lurking at 1500M he will be dangerous. You never write off anyone in the final, but I think Rocher raced his big race in the semi and unless he is hiding something won’t be in the medals in the final. Maeyens has improved a lot this year, while he isn’t the biggest threat, watch him he will be there; there abouts. Any sign of weakness from anyone toward the end, he will pounce and is more than capable of taking home a medal.

So we are in for a great battle Saturday 13:03 European time. I have been given a very favourable draw between Campbell and Synek so will be able to keep a close eye on both of them. I am feeling good and looking forward to it. This is the race that counts this year, we have all prepared for this one and I think its going to be a cracker.

To finish off the kiwi crews Duncan Grant raced his semi earlier today. He had a reasonable race finishing 3rd, I don’t think you have seen him at his best and he will certainly be a threat in the final.

The lightweight Men’s Double also raced today, they again weren’t quite as fast as normal out of the blocks but stayed in control, slowly coming through the pack and leading from the 1000M mark, they always looked comfortable and again will be looking to keep there unbeaten record intact come Sunday.

So all in all a good regatta for New Zealand so far. An exceptional (but possibly unrealistic) regatta would have been 12 from 12 crews in A finals, we have achieved 8 from 12 which is still a pretty good effort, especially considering only 4 of those crews have raced in these combinations internationally before this year. In Saturday’s program we have crews in 5 of the 7 races, that’s second only to GB with 6 from 7. Not bad for little old New Zealand. We will see how the next few days go, I am confident all the crews will step up and perform to their potential which should make for an exciting few days and hopefully a very success regatta for New Zealand.

Everyone can watch on either TV (Eurosport and Sky Sport) or live streaming on the web, go to www.worldrowing.com and look for the links to watch video streaming live.

Will be back after the finals for another update

Mahe

Noticias relacionadas

• Worlds Finals- 4 is the number of the day
• Rowing World Champs- Heats
• Worlds preview-ready to race
• Mahe Drysdale divulga novo website
• Noticias Recentes de Remo

Aergeri is a very pretty Swiss town on a lake that is about 5K long and upto 2K wide. The first week or so wasn’t the best with a few storms coming through and a lot of boat traffic in the afternoons making it tough conditions to row on. We soon adjusted and trained twice in the mornings and as the weather sorted itself out we got much better water and our training was again unhindered and we got on with trying to continue to improve so we could stay ahead of the competition going into the world champs.

We had a little bit of excitement during our stay with two big storms coming through. The first one was hail, I have never seen anything like it as suddenly the whole place looked like we had had snow, thankfully it disappeared fairly quickly. It was an impressive storm and left its mark on a few of the rowing boats that have been dented quite severely and likely to be written off, thankfully mine was under cover and unaffected. The second storm was just about as ferocious but this time only rain lifting the lake level and flooding everything around us.

Our Under 23 crews raced at their world champs in early August, they performed very well picking up 3 gold medals including the men’s coxless four, this meant that the men’s four was invited to come and join the Elite team for the world champs completing a full complement of boats for the first day of finals. The atmosphere in the team has been brilliant; everyone has knuckled down and worked hard over the past 6 weeks, we all get on really well, while at the same time the competitiveness, confidence and team spirit has continued to grow and has been the best team environment I have been involved in since I started in the New Zealand Rowing team in 2001. I am pretty excited about starting to race and I am quietly confident that this team is capable of producing some pretty special results at this world champs.

While it is always hard to predict how we will all go, I think most crews have improved since we raced in Lucerne. Personally I am very happy with how I’m rowing and my speed. I look forward to getting the racing underway so we can see how our competitors stand and get racing again. Seeing how everyone is going I would expect most crews to make the A finals, It would be an awesome effort to get all the crews through and all going to plan that is definitely a possibility. As for medals I would be disappointed if we didn’t come away with at least 4 medals from the worlds, It is never easy to medal but we have a very strong squad this year and this is realistic, again with a few outstanding performances, this count could be taken to 5 or 6 but that would be an absolutely exceptional result.

We have been in Poland for almost a week now, conditions have been different everyday with winds from all directions so we will have to be ready for anything. I think Aergeri has prepared us well for that. I will be back to update you after all the crews have raced heats.

Mahe

Noticias relacionadas

• Worlds Finals- 4 is the number of the day
• Mahe Drysdale: Semi-finals
• Rowing World Champs- Heats
• Mahe Drysdale divulga novo website
• Noticias Recentes de Remo

© 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

Noticias relacionadas

• Munich World Cup Finals
• Munich World Cup- Semis and Repechage
• Worlds Finals- 4 is the number of the day
• Taça do Mundo: Fraga e Mendes em 8º lugar
• Lucerna: Fraga e Mendes em 3º na eliminatória

The last four days have been spent at the Henley Royal Regatta in the UK and it has been great to go back to Henley for the third time. This time I was able to share it with the other New Zealand rowers and team officials, most of which have never been to the regatta. For me it was all fairly familiar, things don’t change too much year to year at Henley and haven’t done much over the last 160 odd years, but that is part of the charm. For those that hadn’t been before they were quite blown away by the experience and really enjoyed their time at the regatta.

For those that don’t know about Henley, it is unique. It is a course laid out on the river, you row into the current and it is marked out by wooden poles with wooden booms(logs) between the poles, this doubles as a place for boats to moor up to, as well as keep down the wash for the rowers from the numerous pleasure boats on the river, the course is 2112M long into the current meaning it is a longer than a usual 2K race, (its all measured in Miles, yards and feet) and the distance is what it is, as that is the longest straight course they could fit on the river. It is a one on one knock out competition like tennis where you loose one race and your knocked out. You win or loose by verdict of distance rather than seconds and it is un-gentlemanly to beat your competition by a verdict of easily (5Lengths or more). This means that there are only 38 crews left on Sunday to compete in the 19 different events. Henley is one of the summer social occasions in the UK and is just as famous for its social activities and Pimms as it is for rowing. It is the only place in the world I have raced the whole way with crowds lining both sides of the river, because of the wooden booms it also means the crowds are closer than usual as they can be within about 1m of the end of your oar about 4 Metres from your body, which can be intimidating at times.

The New Zealand contingent had our full team entered at Henley, we had a total of 10 crews entered in 6 different events (our main competition in all but Emma Twiggs event was the British so it was always going to be good racing at what they consider home), there are no lightweight events and only a few woman’s events, which meant our lightweights had to enter the heavyweight events and our woman’s double and pair had to team up in the quad. As I left you in my last email 9 of the 10 crews made it through to semi final day on Saturday.

The woman’s ‘B’ quad (pair and double) were knocked out by the British in the semi, while our ‘A’ quad beat the Chinese to set up the first NZ v British final. Our lightweight four had a great row to beat the Italians and face a final showdown against the British heavyweight four. Emma Twigg won through easily in her semi in the single but unfortunately Juliette Haigh wasn’t able to make it an all kiwi final after she hit a buoy at the start and fought back to within a length of a US sculler. The men’s double met our own lightweight double and ended up dominating the race to set up the third NZ British final. The men’s pair faced the Brits in the semi, this was tipped as the race of the day and possibly what the final should have been. The Brits have been tipped as the next Pinsent and Redgrave (4 and 5 Olympic gold medals respectively) but if they are, our boys are supermen as they pushed straight to the lead and won comfortably to take the NZ v Brit tally 1-0 before the finals started. I raced Tim Maeyens and was expecting a pretty tight race, I quickly got into the lead and never looked back cruising over the second half of the course rating 24 and winning comfortably to remain fresh for the final. The second semi of the single was a great race with Olaf Tufte taking on Alan Campbell. I enjoyed it immensely as I sat on the bank watching them slug it out all the way down the course. Olaf took an early lead and led till about the last 500M, Alan fought all the way and as Olaf started to fade Alan came on strong to row through to set up the fourth NZ British final. All in all a great day qualifying for finals in all the events we entered.

As I have said Henley is unique and certainly is a true test of watermanship, you have to read the river, deal with wash and obstacles and anything else it throws at you. Two years ago I seemed to get the rough deal, I had the tougher semi against Hacker and then got the unfavored side of the river as there was a strong current that added with the fact that Alan loves Henley and pulled out a great race meant I lost. This year I was rowing well, the course was fair with very little current (and I drew the favoured side, if there was one), plus the draw went my way and I got to the final without having to extend myself in any race. Alan on the other hand had been weakened by Olaf which to be honest I enjoyed greatly, as all the odds were finally in my favour. Alan was certainly not to be written off as this was the event he was targeting and sacrificed winning the world cup by choosing to race Henley and not racing in Lucerne later this week.

Sunday turned on an overcast day with a very stiff head wind meaning it was going to be a very long race, something I was pretty happy about as it just stacked another odd in my favour. The day started with a bang with Emma Twigg winning the Princess Royal Challenge Cup Comfortably. The Brits then evened the score with a win in the woman’s quad, our girls put up a good fight leading till half way but couldn’t hold on. The Brits then took a 2-1 lead when they won the Stewards Challenge Cup (men’s four) against the lightweights, into the strong head wind it was always going to be a tough one for the lighties. Next up the men’s pair raced the South Africans and were never threatened winning by a verdict of easily. I was next, well the warm up was eventful as I hit a rowing pleasure craft on the way up, I tried to avoid it at the last minute but managed to hit one of the guys in the head with my oar and watched as they nearly fell in the water.

Alan is known for his fast starts while I am stronger in the second half of the race, being a one on one battle means the guy in front usually has the advantage and to my surprise I got a slight lead in the first few hundred metres. I settled into my rhythm and without doing anything special soon opened up a lengths lead. I was always confident that once I was in front I wouldn’t loose, but was expecting Alan to be in front early on and have to work to get through him. As the race went my lead continued to grow until I was in a commanding position by half way about 3 lengths in front. I was rating about 30 and while the head wind was strong I felt comfortable and ready to respond if I needed to. Alan never threw in the towel and continued to push all the way to the line, Being in front I was able to adsorb his moves and move back to hold my margin, in the last 500M he probably closed the gap by about a length but I never felt threatened and was very happy to come away with the win. It ended up being a lot easier than I had expected it was going to be as I was prepared for a fight all the way to the line. This made it 2-2 with the Brit Kiwi battle and it was up to the men’s double to row the decider. They flew out of the blocks to lead all the way, the Brits fought all the way and in the end it was a tight race finishing with a lengths win to the kiwis and a domination in the small boats. There are only 4 events at Henley where there is less than 4 people in a boat and we won all four. It was also nice to get the better of the Brits on home soil, beating them head to head 3-2.

After the race it was a quick warm down before getting ready for the prize giving. The trophies at Henley are very impressive and valuable, so you only get to be in possession of them for a limited time while a Steward makes sure you don’t do anything wrong. Between us, Emma won the Princess Royal Challenge Cup (she keeps a lovely silver broach), I won the Diamond Challenge Sculls (a wooden box with silver sculls crossed with a wreath of green enamel, set with rubies and gold and of course a large diamond), I also get the pineapple cup which I get to keep. The men’s pair won the Silver goblets & Nickalls Challenge Cup again they get to keep the Silver goblets while the double won the Double Sculls Challenge Cup and get medals to keep. After the photos and a catch up with supporters it was time to squeeze in a few Pimms before heading off for dinner.

Overall was a very successful regatta and good to still be performing well. Personally I am very pleased with my rowing and looking forward to the Lucerne world cup this weekend. We are already in Switzerland and settled in and training at Lucerne, I will be back with more updates once we have raced here. Racing starts Friday.

Until then take care

Mahe

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After the teams success in Munich there was a great feeling in the team and everyone was straight back into knuckling down to make sure we continue or results throughout the season. I stayed with the team in Munich until Friday before heading off to Amsterdam for the Holland Beker.

This was the 5th time I have been to the Holland Beker regatta in the last 6 years, it has not been my most successful regatta with a win in the four in 2004 and last years win in the single being my only success. It is always a good fun regatta to go to. While there is usually a lot of top scullers at this regatta unfortunately this year there were only a couple of good scullers with the USA sculler and Dutch sculler in attendance (both from the B final in Munich). There were only 11 entries meaning a top two finish in the heat would take you straight through to the final. The heat went well I got out in front from about the 300M marker then was able to ease back in the second half to win comfortably and take the fastest time of the day. As expected the USA and Dutch sculler made it straight through from the other heat.

The rest of the day I spent relaxing and enjoying some sunshine, after the hot sunny start we had in Munich we then had 8 days of straight rain with top temperatures of about 12 degrees. So the sun and warm temperatures were much appreciated. On Sunday I was up early for a paddle and home for a snooze before heading back to the Bosbann for the final. It ended up being a pretty hot race, I was always in front but the Dutch sculler pushed me hard for the first 1000M, the US sculler was also in contention. I took control in the 3rd 500M to move clear by about 4seconds by the 1500M. I kept it on right to the finish as the two behind me started to race each other for silver. I took the win by 6.5sec in a time of 6:50 was pretty happy with my scull making it a great start to the season and nice to know I could back Munich’s result up. I was rewarded with a drug test followed by a catch up with all the friends I have met from the Nederland’s over the years of rowing, was a fun evening.

Monday and it was once again on a plane and this time off to the UK for the Henley Royal Regatta. We arrived and set ourselves up in Maidenhead before having a look around and getting some dinner. We spent the first half of the week training at Eton which is the 2012 Olympic course. Some of us have raced there before, I have already won a world title and set a world best time so it is quite a special course for me and hopefully continues that way for the next four years. We have also spent time scouting out accommodation and eateries as we are likely to stay around Maidenhead during the Olympics as the Olympic village will be too far away from the course.

The week went well and seems like everything is continuing to go in the right direction. Thursday the first half of the team moved to Henley and we started racing. The men’s pair, Duncan Grant and myself all started racing. Both The men’s pair and myself had fairly straight forward wins while Duncan faced last years champion. He had a fine race to win by a few lengths which in the eyes of the UK media was a huge upset, not sure they realise Duncan is the current lightweight world champion and very quick sculler.

Friday the rest of the team arrived from Eton and was another good day. All the crews won through to the semi finals except for Duncan who faced Tim Meyens (4th at Olympics), being a good team mate Duncan Pushed Tim all the way loosing by about 2 lengths and hopefully tiring Tim out for me, as I face him in the semis today.

Today we have a very busy day of racing with some very good match ups, its great to be back at Henley with all its uniqueness. All the first timers are enjoying it and I will be back with a more in depth report in the next few days.

Mahe

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• The B finals were yesterday afternoon and after our womans double took the win (7th overall) our mens four could only manage 3rd (9th overall)
• The A finals started yesterday and Duncan got us off to a good start with a lead all the way victory in the lightweight single for our first gold.
• Robin Tinga our adaptive sculler was next to go with a credible performance to finish 4th. He would end up being our only crew in an A final that didn’t bring home a medal.
• This morning our pairs lead off, the womans pair led from the start and held a good length throughout the race. Coming into the last 250M the Chinese threw everything at them and it ended in a photo finish with our girls coming off best with a very tight fought Gold medal.
• The mens pair completely dominated their competitors, they led from the start and extended to a 5.5sec lead by the 1000M, the race was all but over and try as they may the British could only try and make the distance look less than embarrassing, by the end the margin was down to 2.5sec and our second gold of the day.
• The Mens double had a battle all the way through their race to be piped by a canvass by the Germans but still a good result taking home silver.
• Emma Twigg raced next and going through the 1000M was right up with Knapkova of the Czech Republic, unfortunately she was unable to reverse the order and came home with Silver, still a very credible result first up.
• I raced next and the race panned out pretty much as planned. Campbell took an early advantage getting out to about a boat length lead going through the 500M, I was sitting in 2nd just under a length up on Tufte and Synek. Second 500M I slowly started to close the gap on Campbell. I was feeling really good and at the 1000M felt like I still had a lot left in the tank. I turned on the turbo at about 1100M going past Campbell and spreading the field. I took 3.5sec out of Campbell in the third 500M and 2 seconds out of Tufte and Synek. It was pretty much a repeat of the worlds back in 2007 except this time no one managed to close the gap in the last 500M so I took the win by 3.5sec (my biggest ever winning margin in world cups), Campbell held on for second and Tufte Bronze. So a great way to start and at least I know things are on track and going in the right direction.
• The Lightweight double raced next, they led right from the start and opened up a very clear gap over their opposition, they held this to the end with another very impressive open water win.
• That left only the womans quad to race. They also had a good race, they got a little behind in the first 1000M but really started to move through the field in the second 1000M, they moved up and passed the Chinese for 3rd position then set off after the British, unfortunately they weren’t quite able to close the gap but still finished with a bronze rounding out a great day and a good first up regatta for them.

This is our most successful world cup ever with 5 golds, 2 silvers and 1 bronze, not bad for 11 newish crews. None of us are getting complacent yet as we realise that it is still very early days and the hard work is still ahead of us. This is a good indication we are on the right track but there is still a lot of quality crews missing from a number of the fields and all our competitors will now take stock and set about chasing us down in the coming months. It is however a very pleasing way to start. There are some very positive signs considering we only got off the plane a week ago, while some of the fields are weak most of wins were convincing and by clear water and we are yet to do any speed work, so should be able to get even faster as we move towards the worlds. That is the real prize this year and these are just steps along the way.

We look forward to getting back into training over the next few weeks to try and keep our positions in Lucerne and Poznan, between now and then there will be more racing but that should just help sharpen us up.

I will be back with more results as they happen, until then take care.

Mahe

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