Olympic Champions Pt 2

The night before any race we always meet in my room and Mike goes over all of the logistics for the next day including eating times and bus times so everyone is on the same page. We talk about the race, what we think will happen, who to look out for, what other people are capable of but more importantly we talk about what we need to do in order to win by a large margin. I always do a simulated race where I go over all the calls and most of the guys close their eyes and visualize the race in their mind. After all of that was done Mike did something that he never does in a pre-race talk. He read us a poem. It was a very special poem though. It was a poem about us. I'll always remember that he wrote a poem about the 1992 Canadian Gold medal Eight called "Barcelona Gold" and this time it was about us! It may seem odd to you, but to have Mike write a poem with your name in it means you have left an impression on one of the hardest men in the world. It was a very special moment for us all and one that I won't forget.

We had it all planned out.....we had practiced our race day ritual many times. We were like clockwork heading down to the course with everyone knowing exactly what had to be done on the water. Nerves are a tricky thing as they can sometimes hinder your performance if you let them get in the way. For us, it was always the acknowledgment that they were there, everyone was feeling them so it was normal to feel that way. You could feel some tension in the boat the morning of the race but that soon subsided over the 4km row and it soon switched to intensity over the final 2km of the race simulation where I go through all the calls on the course exactly where they would be taking place so the guys have a full visualization of the race.
Our race wasn't until 5:30pm which now meant we had from about 10am (morning pre-row done) till 3:30pm which was the bus down to the course. At one point Kyle and I literally had nothing to do so we just started packing our bags as it took our minds off the racing for a few minutes and allowed us to actually do something productive. I knew my weight was fine as I had been checking it religiously 3 times a day. All I was going to have to do was drink 250ml of water and my weight was perfect. (121.2lbs) Couldn't ask for it to be better than that.
As the guys showed up at the course we turned the boat over so Mike (coach) and I could give it one final check to make sure all nuts are tight, seats are moving smooth and the boat is totally clean. I remembered that our lightweight women's double was coming down the course so a bunch of us headed upstairs to watch them start the day with a bronze medal. The lightweight four followed suit with a bronze of their own. I remember thinking that this was great news for Rowing Canada as we were now poised to become the top medal sport for the country.

Olympic Champions!!!

WOW!!! What a thrill.....what a race!!!

The days leading up to the race my nerves were taking a beating.....one minute butterflies, the next minute full of confidence and ready to go. I had to keep telling myself that I am here because I am the best and that I have a job to do with 8 guys depending on me. I definately felt reassured when Jake Wetzel, (silver medalist from Athens) told me that he was really pleased with how I had taken control of the boat since we arrived in China and that he was really pumped for the upcoming final. Sometimes a little vote of confidence in your corner can go a long way. :)

The night before the final I realized just how well prepared we were for this final in comparison to 4 years ago. I don't feel we were underprepared 4 years ago rather we now had the experience to know what exactly is expected and what was forthcoming. We had been training extremely well all week generally running sub-world record times for whatever stretch of work we did, so we were keeping things on a boil for sure.

I have to stop writing this now as I have tickets to go and see Adam vanKoeverdon race his first final today. Check back as I will finish this later......sorry.....

By the way....I have taken so long updating as my hotel internet connection was not allowing me to get onto the blog site....

FINALS Race TIMES

I hear that people have been asking when the finals will be shown. Below is a list of Canadian boats in the finals on Saturday and Sunday. I am pretty sure that these will all be shown "live" on CBC but also remember to check TSN just in case they are showing it there.

The Men's Eight will be on Sunday August 17 at 5:30AM EST.

SATURDAY FINALS (Aug 16)
-------------------------------------------
Men's Pair - SILVER MEDAL!!!
4:30AM EST

Sunday Finals (Aug 17)
---------------------------------
Lightweight Women's Double - BRONZE MEDAL!!!
3:30AM EST

Lightweight Men's Four - BRONZE MEDAL!!!
4:10AM EST

Women's Eight
5:10AM EST

MEN'S EIGHT - GOLD MEDAL
5:30AM EST

Olympic Opportunities are Precious

The past few days have really hit home that Olympic opportunities are precious. They can be taken away in an instant and when it's gone....it's gone.
Once you get to a high level in sport you have to be careful not to take things for granted. I've said it before that you can't expect to finish in a certain position or have the performance you feel you deserve.....you have to make it happen.
The semi-finals of the heavy Men's Four went down the course on Wednesday and it left all three medalists from last years World Championships wondering what went wrong as none of them are going to be racing in the Olympic final! All three medal winning boats are out!!
That being said....the word is that there is a sickness going through the New Zealand camp but the Italians and Dutch haven't got that excuse. Excuse or not....the Olympics are over for the 2007 World Champion New Zealand Four. Just like that, a stomach bug can snatch it all away. We have been using anti-bacterial hand sanitizer like crazy. Three members of the German lightweight four got sick the day before their semi-final and they didn't even get to the start line.....we saw the coaches packing up their boat, Olympics over for them.
It just all became too real in the past couple days how quickly things can turn for something that is virtually out of your hands.
We are going to continue to be extra careful by using the hand sanitizer, drinking and using only bottled water. So far our hotel has not had any sickness at all.

Finals are set

All of the Canadian Men's Eight was down at the course today to have a look at the repachage and see who would make it into the Olympic final. Only the top four would qualify so it set up for a barn-burner of a race.

Here us the play-by-play from the rep

The USA got out to a lead and seemed to be moving away from the field as they went through the 500m mark then the Australians decided that they would follow them and kept right on the heels of the US. This trend continued to the 1500m mark then the Aussie's moved through the US and I thought they would take it home for the win but the US answered them and again pushed their bow out into the front and won the race. In behind all of this Poland was set in third with the Dutch and Chinese fighting it out for the final spot. The Chinese gave up too much in the early going to overcome the deficit they had found themselves in and came up about 1 seat shy of making the final. That was a huge blow to Chinese Rowing after having had such a good World Cup season. Just goes to show you though.....don't rest on your laurels and don't wait for things to happen for you.....make them happen, because if you don't someone else will control your fate....and that's never pretty.
The Germans never stood a chance. They changed their entire crew after Lucerne leaving all eight of those guys at home and bringing in fresh young blood for the Olympics...they even sacked the coach! It obviously didn't pay off for them...but maybe it will in the future.

So now the Olympic final is set and here are the boats that will be at the start line.

Poland, USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Netherlands

Not sure of the lane assignments just yet, but we will definitely be in the middle lanes with Great Britain. The lanes are seeded from the middle out. In the event of a crosswind, the top crews would get the advantage of rowing nearest to the shore so as to avoid the wind.

Thats about it for now....I will put up another post in a few days.

Hope you are all enjoying the Olympics as much as I am!!!

Heat WINNER!!

Part 1 of the Olympic journey is complete. We won our heat today in a time of 5:27.69. The margin to second place ended up being about 7 seconds to Poland. Convincing yes....but listen to this.

As you know we were delayed yesterday by a thunderstorm. Today, just before we went out onto the water it started to rain. Immediately I thought, "great, here we go, another delay", but there was no lightning so we continued and after 10 minutes the rain stopped anyway. Now, we get into the lane and the starting "boot" comes up from under the water to hold the bow of our boat in place and doesn't our little rubber bow ball get caught on it and breaks off! I called to the starter to tell him that we no longer had one as it is a safety issue and I didn't want to get a false start or DQ for something so dumb. The starter says it is ok and we will continue without it.
The race is off without incident and we start moving on the Australians getting just over a 3/4 boat length lead, then about 800m in the Aussie's all of a sudden start moving very hard into our lane. I tell the guys we need to go now to get out of the way! They responded well and got us the extra 5m that we needed to clear them or they would have run right into us!! Next thing you know they stop rowing and it is now a 3 horse battle! I was thinking this is nuts....aren't we at the Olympics??

Anyway....here are some details of the race.
Just before the starter announced that we were clear to race without a bowball, (major safety issue) a rower named James Tompkins looked across as me and said "does it really matter?" To which I responded...."Don't know". For all of you who don't know James, he is a 3-time Olympic Rowing Champion.....no small feat.
We were clear to go and the starter gave a pretty long pause which has been normal for this regatta so far. The start for me was eerily quiet. I don't know if I was in the moment and extremely focused or what but I couldn't hear anything except for our blades and my voice. I didn't hear the other coxwains which is odd because I always hear them. That being said we got off to a decent start and took a seat on the Aussie's. We held this for a bit and just before the 500m mark we were able to start moving on them which was a good thing because little did I know they were coming over to snuggle up to us in 300m!!
Once the Aussie's had rudder problems and bailed we had open water on Poland and the Dutch. The race was essentially over at that point and we just rowed it pretty clean to the finish executing the calls but not with the vigor you would if you had someone right beside you. The crowd wasn't as loud as I thought it would be but with the lead we had they didn't need to cheer too hard, we were clearly going to win.
At the finish line we were told to take our boat straight to the dock since without a bowball the cool-down area was off limits for us. That wasn't really a problem since we have 4 stationary bikes and 4 ergometers in our boat bay to cool down on.

I spoke with the Australian cox after all the media interviews were done and he looked pretty shocked. He said the rudder just got stuck to starboard and he couldn't get it off. The boat maufacturer was repairing it as he told me this. That being said, I use the same rudder/fin system....nearly the exact same boat!! I will be checking it over thoroughly tomorrow.

We now have to wait for the winner of the repachage tomorrow to know who will be in the final. The repachage will be a 6 boat race with the top 4 going through to the final.
Poland, Netherlands, USA, China, Australia & Germany will fight it out for the spots.

The winner of the other Heat was Great Britain. They did have a faster time than us by just under 2 seconds, but if you look at the time through 1000m we were ahead by 0.80 seconds. (1/3length) They have certainly put in some good work in the last 2 months since we last met them in Lucerne so I will be keeping my eyes on them for the final. Clearly they came here for a medal.

That's about it for now...I'll let you know tomorrow who we will be facing in the final.

Lightning Strikes! Booooo

For those of you loyal fans who got up to watch the Men's Eight race you were sadly dissappointed to hear that the racing was delayed then canceled. There was huge storm approaching as we were about to launch and they called it off shortly after that. We were about halfway through our warm-up when we were told to take it back to the dock.
It was a bit annoying, but there isn't much we can do about it really. Once we got back to the hotel, we began to prepare just as we had last night. We are very confident in our preparations to this point and to wait another day is fine by us. The goal is still to win the heat and that is what we are going to do.

It has been raining very hard since about 6:00pm tonight with frequent cracks of thunder and lightning. I'm interested to wake up in the morning and see if this storm has helped get rid of haze and improve the visibility. Today it wasn't too bad.

We will be racing tomorrow afternoon at 3:10pm which will mean 3:10AM EST. That's right. Anybody who wants to watch it will have to get up bright and early! It should be shown on TSN....but check CBC as well.

Sleep tight!

The DRAW

Heat #1 5:40pm (china time)
Poland, Australia, Canada, Netherlands

Heat #2 5:50pm (china time)
Germany, USA, Great Britain, China

First place in each heat advances directly to the Final on Aug 17, all the rest will go into a repachage race where the top four boats will advance to the final. Obviously it is advantageous to win and have the middle to the week to rest up and tune up for the final. (no secret there)

Remember that for those of you in Ontario on EST these races will come down the course at 5:40am on Aug 10. Everyone get up outta bed and watch! It's a Sunday!!

Let the racing begin!!!!!

GO TIME!!!

Here we go! The Opening Ceremonies start in less than an hour! We had some of the rowers attend including the spares but no members of the heavyweight men's team. We are all going to be watching a CBC feed in our common room. Ever heard of a Slingbox? That is what we are using.
It was super hazy today down at the course with about 700m visibility. It was as hazy as I have seen it since arriving on Aug 4. The course officials opened the "warm-up" area for 2 hours today so crews could take a look at it and better judge their timing for the warm-up. We took full advantage of this as usually we never get to go on the warm-up course before a regatta. It's just nice to know the exact timing and turns out I had it down to a science. As we paddled down near the end of the warm-up area I noticed quite a bit of weed on the surface of the water. Turned out that there we divers under the water cutting all the weed down low and then they had groups of people raking it in and pulling it ashore. I have noticed these "weed pickers" along the shore on other days as well. It seems that they like do things in large groups so as to be more productive, a novel idea :)
Everything down at the course is well laid out. The boathouse is very nice with large bays to store the boats. We share out bay with Belarus. They only have a four and a quad so it is mostly just us Canadians. (Women's Eight, Quad, Lwt Four, Men's Eight) In the upstairs portion of the boathouse we have 2 room set aside for just Canada. We use one as a lounging area and the other as a treatment room. We also got a router setup in there for wireless internet access. There are fridges upstairs with all the Coke products plus water for us to take as we please. In front of each storage bay there are coolers full of water so there is never a shortage of liquids.
Speaking of internet access, I have had no trouble surfing any pages that I want to. I have never been blocked from any normal browsing that I do.

I feel like this venue is a better setup than Athens was 4 years ago. Especially for the spectators in the Family & Friends stands. In Athens, the video screen was on the same side at the F&F stands so they could not see the live coverage. This year they have the large screen on the same side facing across the course but they also have a screen at the end of the F&F stands so they will all get a great look at the racing live.
This is the first time that we have ever had another venue near to us. Right beside us is white water kayaking. We have a Canadian contender in this event named David Ford. I'm hoping that I can check it out as I think it is the second week...time will tell.

Well, the Opening is about to begin so I am going to go and check out the CBC feed.

Enjoy the Opening Ceremonies if you are watching it live at work when you should be working!!!

How the Boats got here

I thought that this was a great article about how you get boats from Europe/Canada over to China.
We are using an Empacher which is mentioned in the story. Our boat came on the shipment from Lucerne, Switzerland.
Remember our boat is 60ft long and since 45ft containers are the largest you can get, it has a section built into it. It fastens together with bolts and creates a very tight seal.

Enjoy

http://worldrowing.com/display/modules/news/dspNews.php?newid=324460

Men's Eight-worldrowing.com's take

Below is what www.worldrowing.com had to say about the Men's Eight. I just copied and pasted it.

Men’s Eight (M8+) A lot is at stake in this event. Germany pin their rowing hopes on the men’s eight and have already undergone some last-minute team changes - including the coach - to make sure they deliver their best. The United States put its top sweep rowers into this boat as does Canada. Australia’s rowing hero James Tomkins describes this boat as rowing itself, the V8 of the sport. Coming into the Olympic Games, Athens champions the United States are a bit of a mystery. Coach Mike Teti has chosen not to race them internationally this year and they finished a disappointing fourth last year. But Teti plays a clever game and there is no doubt that he will be doing what’s right. Canada is less of a mystery. They are the reigning World Champions and have convincingly won the only race they had this season. These two crews must surely be leading the way. The big question mark hangs over China and Great Britain. China qualified for the Olympics by finishing seventh last year and have improved to pick up two very welcome Rowing World Cup medals this season. The Chinese nation has backed and hyped this boat to the hilt. They have the weight of 1.3 billion Chinese on their shoulders. Great Britain is also improving and has medalled at all three Rowing World Cups this season, despite regular crew changes. Keep an eye out also for the Australian boat - featuring the mighty Tomkins at his fifth Olympic Games, they won gold at the Rowing World Cup in Munich in May.

I have arrived in BEIJING!

Our departure from Japan started early as we got up at 4:00am and took a shuttle bus to the Narita Airport for our first flight at 8:30am. It was about an hour drive to the airport. We flew from Narita to Nagoya(1hr) then Nagoya to Beijing.(3hrs) As we were boarding for Beijing I was walking down the boarding tunnel with Ben Rutledge (6'6") and he didn't realize that there were heater hanging from the roof and one second he was beside me....and the next thing he was on the floor in total pain as he smashed his bald head on it! He hit it hard, I thought that someone had kicked the wall it hit so hard. As I looked at it once he recovered, I couldn't help but laugh as he had a huge red mark and skin hanging on the top of his head. The curse of being tall I guess!

As we touched down in Beijing and I peered out the window I realized that the view was extremely hazy, almost a fog. I came later to find out that it was in fact more of a fog rather than a smog/haze. (it was seriously odd at first though) The Beijing Airport is a brand new facility and is extremely large. It was pretty easy for us to navigate though security and such as there were lots of signs and it was also our first look at the army of volunteers that China has assembled for these games. People in blue shirts ready to help....some in good english and others in broken english, but we made it though ok.
Once we came out of the secure area in the main terminal there were a lot of people waiting there to greet us and it sure seemed like a lot of reporters, tv crews and photographers. Andrew Byrnes got a good photo taking a picture of 2 photographers as they took a picture of him. The COC (Canadian Olympic Committee) had representatives there with the organizational things in place in terms of a bus and where we needed to go. The ride to our hotel was only about 30mins.
I couldn't believe how few vehicles there were on the road. They were pretty much barren! I haven't really figured out yet if it is because we are out of the main city or if they have forced that many cars off the roads. Traffic our here in Shunyi where we are located is not going to be a problem.
Upon arriving at our hotel it was obvious that security is a high priority around here. There are arms guards checking your accreditation at the hotel gate just off the street and counting how many people are entering. Walking into the lobby you have to scan your bags and also walk through a vertical scanner and if it beeps they throw the wand over you. It is pretty much like airport security right in the hotel and you have to go through it every time you enter. To be honest, I really do feel safe here.
The hotel itself is less than 2 years old and is pretty much all marble. The rooms are great although the mattress is a bit hard but that's ok. The American and Italian rowing teams are also staying here in our hotel. It is so big that we rarely run into them other than in the main lobby. We all have our separate eating area's and common room's. Tonight we just got a slingbox hooked up to the common room TV so now we can watch regular programming in Canada via the internet. The opening ceremonies will be more interesting on CBC rather than some chinese station.
Staying out here in Shunyi was for sure the best logistical decision of the games so far. We are only 4 mins on the shuttle bus to the course. 4 years ago in Athens we had a 60min ride plus waiting at each end. This is awesome!

Well....it's time for me to go to bed now. We are 12 hours ahead of you over here. (compared to EST) I will give you some more insight into the course and Olympic life tomorrow. I need some rest. I've also really got to get some pictures up asap!! Sorry about that.

Brian