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Here is a picture of the official clock in Beijing. I am not there yet, nor did I take this photo. Our women's team and lightweight teams have arrived in Beijing along with our physio and massage therapist. Our physio took this photo.
We now have 3.5 days left here in Japan before we head into Beijing. Last night we had Marnie McBean and an RCMP Officer go over all the security briefings with us so that we wouldn't have to do it once we got there. He did mention that they the RCMP feels the security is competent. The Chinese do not want any problems and have about 500,000 people associated with security for the games!! To put this into perspective, the 2010 Games in Vancouver will have about 3500 people. WOW!! They may be overdoing it a bit, but I'd much rather over than under.
Anyway....I will try and post some pictures of the Japan camp later today.
I'm sure that some of you are wondering what the heck we do with our time on an Olympic Preparation camp?
It's pretty similar to what we do at home, at least schedule wise. We row in the morning around 8:30am, get back to the hotel around 12:30 then head off again at 3:30pm for our second session and arrive back for dinner at 7:00pm. It takes about 30mins to bus there from the hotel and some messing around once we get there, hence the time away.
In our off time back at the hotel most guys spend it privately in their rooms. There have been quite a few enjoying some online poker, movies, TV shows card games etc. Dinners here have been fantastic! Last night we had a guy making fresh sushi for us! I had a couple tuna nigiri on my plate.
From our perspective it's also interesting reading about all the Olympic stuff going on. Reading about other athletes, hearing about potential problems such as the haze over the city....stuff like that. At the end of the day the whole haze/smog thing doesn't really bother me as we have all be tested for complications from it and we are fine. Everyone has to breath the same air so we are no more disadvantaged than anyone else.
The days are ticking down and preparations are continuing to become more and more meticulous. Focus is drawing in tighter and tighter.
Above is a picture of us training today on the Nagaragawa River in Gifu, Japan
Kevin Light is the resident photographer and videographer of the crew. He has teamed up with CBC to create a photo gallery while we are here in Japan. Here is a link to the first installment.
http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/sports/1431/
You can also check out his photo blog on the Rowing Canada website.
http://www.rowingcanada.org/rowing_news/light_mar06/
It's been kinda weird for me since I've arrived here. The emotions that I have been experiencing have been odd. Nervous but excited, scared but determined, anxious but focused. I continually remind myself of all the training we have done to get here and that is what I must rely on as my daily foundation. A couple of times it has seemed like I'm in a dream or something and unsure if what I am doing is real....then I look around and think "why the hell would I dream about being in Japan on the 2005 Worlds race course??!!" I snap out of it in a hurry and get back on task.
It is odd for me since I usually only get a feeling of nervousness, in fact I have gotten more nervous the older and more experienced I've become. I remember racing at the Worlds in 2002 where it was really the first chance that we had to really dominate and win and I wasn't nervous at all. In fact, our coach said to us before the race "if you aren't nervous, you aren't going to win". I immediately thought oh sh**, I'm not going to win. Then I figured to hell with that, I'm winning this race! As it turned out we did in fact win it.
To combat the nervousness I have found that the better I prepare for each row the more confidence I have in what I am doing. That always calms me down. Prepare, prepare, prepare.
As I've been talking with the other guys in the boat the biggest thing for us right now is to keep reiterating to ourselves that this is it. The moment is now. This is the time to put all those hours and hours we spent training back at Elk Lake to good use. Doing erg workouts in a small room with all the windows closed, fans turned off, heaters literally cranked to get out bodies ready to handle the weather we are currently training in. It is 34deg here + the humidity and some days not a breath of wind. It was 32deg in that erg room every Friday this summer.
The first four days here have been tough, but we know that our bodies are adjusting to both the heat and the 16hour time change. Pushing through it is the best medicine for us. We will step up the intensity for 4 days starting tomorrow to really press the limits of our bodies and then we will look to execute the final high quality, high intensity pieces before we head into China on Aug 4.
At the end of the day, this is the final prep for the Olympics and I can't think of too many things more exciting than that! Whenever I put that into perspective I smile knowing that this is the opportunity of a lifetime and I'm going to reach out and grab it.
We have arrived in japan for our Pre-Olympic camp. The flight wasn't too bad actually...a casual 9 hrs. A few in flight movies, a full read of the Globe & Mail, couple meals and we got there! From Victoria it is a 16hr time difference for us....not a small feat!
The drive from the airport was still another 1.5 hrs to our hotel but it was good to see the lay of the land again, brining back memories of 2005 when I was here for the World Rowing Championships. I immediately noticed all the rice patty fields all over the place. They are very structured pieces of rectangular land that seem to be literally everywhere. They don't seem to have "yards" like we do here. If they do have a yard it always seems to be used for planting food or growing plants.
Our hotel is fairly westernized and the beds are thankfully long enough for all the guys. There is a shopping centre down the street and a bowling alley right in our hotel. We eat all of our meals in the hotel as per usual and so far they have been very good. Really big on making sure we have enough meat in the diet. Lots of food too.
The training venue is about 30 mins away and we all load into the hotel shuttle bus to get there. We were on the course yesterday for a short row which we call "rig 'n row". This is when we arrive at a new venue, get the boats all rigged up and take them out just to make sure everything is tight and adjusted to our liking, that way we can get on with training the next outing. The buoys lines were still getting sorted out as they weren't very straight yesterday but there were guys out there in boats working on them so hopefully they will be better today. It makes my job tough when there are 3-4 doglegs in a 2000m course!
All in all things are going well and the coach has given us the plan leading up to the Games. We will train twice a day while we are here working on developing our race plan, strategy and our precision to row together over the next 2 weeks. It is only 17 days till the opening ceromonies now.....every row, every stroke is ratcheting up the intensity and nerves!
On Sunday we had a great send-off here in Victoria hosted by Pacific Sport for all of the athletes from the greater Victoria area that are attending the 2008 Olympics. Can you believe that there were 41 athletes in total!! I was impressed!
The local fire dept got things started off with a pancake breakfast for $2 and there was the local "street band" entertaining everyone. All the athletes gathered for the official march to the stage by two Chinese dragon dancers. I was surprised at how many people turned out to see us all. Once up on stage we were all introduced and welcomed by the crowd.
Pacific Sport had made up trading cards of us all and the kids were coming around to us getting them signed.
All in all a great morning and a good time. Brianna (my daughter) was up on stage with me for a bit, then got scared and I had to hand her back off to my wife Robbi at the side of the stage.
Here is a picture of my trading card, front & back.
I might be getting some extras soon so if you want one sent for you or your kids, let me know and Robbi should be able to send it in the mail as I will be away in Japan.
As many of you may recall from reading this blog, I reported that we had decided to switch boats well over a month ago!! Well CBCsports.ca decided to make it a story and really tried to run with it. I don't really blame them I guess since we have in fact switched from a Canadian made boat to a German one.
The fact remains though that it is all about what we believe in and for now that belief is in the German Empacher boat.
Read the link below to see what I am talking about. The reporter tried for 15 minutes on the phone to get me to talk smack about the Hudson (Canadian boat) I just wouldn't bite. Nothing to say.
The reporter actually reported the story once.....then talked to the coach and I on the phone and reported it again on the same day!!
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/rowing/story/2008/07/03/olympics-news-menseight-boat.html
We now have 3.5 days left here in Japan before we head into Beijing. Last night we had Marnie McBean and an RCMP Officer go over all the security briefings with us so that we wouldn't have to do it once we got there. He did mention that they the RCMP feels the security is competent. The Chinese do not want any problems and have about 500,000 people associated with security for the games!! To put this into perspective, the 2010 Games in Vancouver will have about 3500 people. WOW!! They may be overdoing it a bit, but I'd much rather over than under.
