The semi went off without a hitch. We won it and didn't have to push ourselves to the finish line, which is exactly what you want out from a semi.
The final order for this race was Canada, Great Britain, Germany, China, Switzerland and Belarus. Coming into it we figured that Germany would be the big contender and they were but a hard charging British crew took them down at the finish line. Basically our plan was to dominate the field early and see what type of a pace they were willing to sustain. Everytime we pushed this pace harder, we gained on the other crews, so we just kept on doing that. At the 1000m mark we had a boat length lead. (3 seconds) At this point we should have kept charging and tried to get a little more. It's a difficult thing to do though since you know you are in a dominating position and you don't want to push yourself harder than you have to since it is just a semi-final. Because of this we stuck at our 1 boat length lead from 1100m-1500m. This isn't a bad thing, but you have to be careful that this type of complacancy doesn't creep into the final on Sunday. We want to bury the field when we get this chance on Sunday.
The final 400m of sprinting was"ok" for us as we never want to have to burn to the line if you don't have to. It is this "burn" that can be difficult to recover from in just 2 days. We only gave up just over 1 second in terms of our lead in the final 500m so we were satisfied but knew there was still a lot more there for Sunday.
The real race was for second and Great Britain did what they usually do and saved themselves for the big sprint. This is a tactic that I have seen get you a medal in the past, but it rarely wins. As Canadians, we do not use this tactic. We go for the throats early and often. If we can make the other crews hurt early in the race while they try to stay with us, they are less likely to have the energy for a big sprint. Truth be told, anyone can sprint when they see the light at the end of the tunnel, its those who are courageous that are willing to hit the wall when there is no light in sight!
Look for us to again drive the pace of the field early in the race on Sunday and see what everyone else is made of. I am really excited to help these 8 men empty their tanks in the final....lets see if we can throw some Germans and Brits into the "hurt locker"!!!
All for now....
Brian
Olympic Champion Cox - Men's 8
OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS!!!!
Friday, August 31, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Men's 8 Heat is a Victory
Hello from the World Rowing Championships in Munich!!
As I am sure most of you are aware, after leaving Trow I went straight out west to Victoria and I have been having a successful season so far on the World Cup circuit winning the overall World Cup title in the Men's 8 this year and I am now in Munich Germany for the World Rowing Championships which also serves as the Beijing Olympic Qualification Regatta.
This year the Men's 8 had 16 entries. The top 7 crews will earn a qualification spot for the Olympics in Beijing. That being said it is the boat that earns the spot....the athletes can change, but generally crews that do well don't often change too many members.
With 16 entries we are split up into 3 heats with 5, 5 & 6 boats each. From each heat the top 2 countries qualify directly to the semi-finals and all the rest go to what we call the "repechage" or second chance race. In our Heat we had Italy, France, Great Britain and Australia. The knew the main players were going to be GB & Aus simply from racing them earlier this season. Out of the starting blocks 10 strokes into the race we got about a 2 foot lead on the field and then France darted out to a 1 seat advantage. I mentioned this to the guys and immediately informed them that France would be unable to sustain this pace so don't worry about them but I am aware of what they are doing.....within 10 strokes we were again ahead and never thought about them again....that is what we call a "fly & die" in rowing....except usually you can do it for longer than 200 metres!
On with the race.
Coming into 500m we had established about a 2.5 seat lead on GB and a 3.5 seat lead on Australia. It was at this point that we really started to drive a power rhythm and I told the guys that it was time to take control of the race with the my next call. We started to slowly move ahead taking a foot every 3 strokes and the guys kept really focused to what I was asking them to do and I made sure to let them know if it was working or not as this would help them stay committed to the call if they were getting good value out of it by gaining on the opposition. This attack lasted about 400m and GB was unable to respond. By 1000m (halfway) into the race we had 3/4 boat length lead (2 secs).
Once you get into a race such as this where you are leading and in control of the field, the opposition knows that if they don't do something soon, the race is over. I kept watching GB as we went through 1000m and made sure that if they were trying to make pushes into us, I would let the guys know and we would counter then and stop it. The tactic is to stop them from moving and then increase your lead on them immediately and that way they would become demoralized realizing that that cost them a lot of energy and they got nothing to show for it. This tactic proved to be successful from 1000m - 1250m. At 1250m I called for more power and we moved on GB again with the lead now nearly length.
Now as I mentioned earlier Australia was also a contender in this race but until 1400m didn't really do much.
They made their move and started coming hard into GB....this of course caused GB to put everything into it while we kept our cruise control on and I told the guys that I could see Australia only 1/4 boat length behind GB but still moving on them. I decided that the best thing to do with only 300m to go would be to put in one final small push to make sure of the victory but not enough that we had to sprint and burn our reserve energy to the finish line. In the closing 200m, Australia overtook GB and came to within 1/2 boat length of us at the finish line but I was not concerned as I knew they were sprinting to qualify and we hadn't even sprinted yet and there was still another gear there if necessary.
My coach always says that what hurts you the most is the burn at the start and the burn at the finish, so if you don't have to burn...don't.
After the race was over I quietly mentioned to the guys "sit up and don't look tired, take deep breaths, but make them think you didn't even feel it". It is a good psychological ploy to play with the oppositions head a little at the end of a race.
We looked at the times after the race and saw that our time was the fastest of the day and that we were 3 seconds faster than the winners of the other 2 heats and Australia had the second fastest time but they spent everything they had to do it. So as it stands now, we are still the "odds-on favorite" to win. I honestly believe that we are the fastest crew here....we just have to prove that to the world 2 more times. Once in the Semi-final on Friday and then again in the Final on Sunday. What we do know is this. The Heat that we just won is not going to be good enough to win the Gold medal on Sunday, we still have a lot of work to do and it is up to us to make it happen, we can't expect a free ride or an easy race.
All for today from the Worlds in Munich.....
Brian
As I am sure most of you are aware, after leaving Trow I went straight out west to Victoria and I have been having a successful season so far on the World Cup circuit winning the overall World Cup title in the Men's 8 this year and I am now in Munich Germany for the World Rowing Championships which also serves as the Beijing Olympic Qualification Regatta.
This year the Men's 8 had 16 entries. The top 7 crews will earn a qualification spot for the Olympics in Beijing. That being said it is the boat that earns the spot....the athletes can change, but generally crews that do well don't often change too many members.
With 16 entries we are split up into 3 heats with 5, 5 & 6 boats each. From each heat the top 2 countries qualify directly to the semi-finals and all the rest go to what we call the "repechage" or second chance race. In our Heat we had Italy, France, Great Britain and Australia. The knew the main players were going to be GB & Aus simply from racing them earlier this season. Out of the starting blocks 10 strokes into the race we got about a 2 foot lead on the field and then France darted out to a 1 seat advantage. I mentioned this to the guys and immediately informed them that France would be unable to sustain this pace so don't worry about them but I am aware of what they are doing.....within 10 strokes we were again ahead and never thought about them again....that is what we call a "fly & die" in rowing....except usually you can do it for longer than 200 metres!
On with the race.
Coming into 500m we had established about a 2.5 seat lead on GB and a 3.5 seat lead on Australia. It was at this point that we really started to drive a power rhythm and I told the guys that it was time to take control of the race with the my next call. We started to slowly move ahead taking a foot every 3 strokes and the guys kept really focused to what I was asking them to do and I made sure to let them know if it was working or not as this would help them stay committed to the call if they were getting good value out of it by gaining on the opposition. This attack lasted about 400m and GB was unable to respond. By 1000m (halfway) into the race we had 3/4 boat length lead (2 secs).
Once you get into a race such as this where you are leading and in control of the field, the opposition knows that if they don't do something soon, the race is over. I kept watching GB as we went through 1000m and made sure that if they were trying to make pushes into us, I would let the guys know and we would counter then and stop it. The tactic is to stop them from moving and then increase your lead on them immediately and that way they would become demoralized realizing that that cost them a lot of energy and they got nothing to show for it. This tactic proved to be successful from 1000m - 1250m. At 1250m I called for more power and we moved on GB again with the lead now nearly length.
Now as I mentioned earlier Australia was also a contender in this race but until 1400m didn't really do much.
They made their move and started coming hard into GB....this of course caused GB to put everything into it while we kept our cruise control on and I told the guys that I could see Australia only 1/4 boat length behind GB but still moving on them. I decided that the best thing to do with only 300m to go would be to put in one final small push to make sure of the victory but not enough that we had to sprint and burn our reserve energy to the finish line. In the closing 200m, Australia overtook GB and came to within 1/2 boat length of us at the finish line but I was not concerned as I knew they were sprinting to qualify and we hadn't even sprinted yet and there was still another gear there if necessary.My coach always says that what hurts you the most is the burn at the start and the burn at the finish, so if you don't have to burn...don't.
After the race was over I quietly mentioned to the guys "sit up and don't look tired, take deep breaths, but make them think you didn't even feel it". It is a good psychological ploy to play with the oppositions head a little at the end of a race.
We looked at the times after the race and saw that our time was the fastest of the day and that we were 3 seconds faster than the winners of the other 2 heats and Australia had the second fastest time but they spent everything they had to do it. So as it stands now, we are still the "odds-on favorite" to win. I honestly believe that we are the fastest crew here....we just have to prove that to the world 2 more times. Once in the Semi-final on Friday and then again in the Final on Sunday. What we do know is this. The Heat that we just won is not going to be good enough to win the Gold medal on Sunday, we still have a lot of work to do and it is up to us to make it happen, we can't expect a free ride or an easy race.
All for today from the Worlds in Munich.....
Brian
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