Semi-Final is a Win!

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