In Lucerne and Ready to GO!!

We arrived in Lucerne after a short 3 hour bus ride through some glorious scenery in Northern Italy and Switzerland. Let me tell you, it's nothing like Canada. The only thing similar are the Rocky Mountains, but even then the landscape is totally different. Anyway.......

The first thing we noticed upon our arrival was the heat here, and it has gotten even hotter. It's certainly not unbearable, but its around 30deg. That being said, the course is in perfect condition as per usual with Lucerne and just a slight tail wind. We've been on the course 4 times now and have gotten into our routine as we practiced in Italy and have settled into our new digs at the Hotel Europe.

The rest of the Canadian Rowing Team had already arrived here in Lucerne as they decided to arrive a couple days early to the venue rather than having a pre-world cup camp as we did. The "rest" of the team is comprised of the heavyweight women, lightweight women and lightweight men. In a future blog I will explain this distinction and what crews we have boated in these classes.

Since this is a World Cup regatta I would encourage you to check www.worldrowing.com and you can listen to my races live as we are competing. If you would like, there is a link there to purchase a live video feed, although I think this may only be for the finals. I believe that we race around 2:30pm Swiss time. It may change slightly but that is a pretty good guideline. We will find out this evening (Friday) what the draw looks like for the Heat. The progression in the Men's Eight will be as follows. First place from Heat #1 & #2 will go directly to the final and the rest will go into 2 repechage races where the top two from each will advance.

We are obviously here to win, so no matter who we face in the Heat we plan on punching our ticket straight to the final with a win Friday.