Olympic Impressions from Schinias. Day 2 - Sunday 15th August 2004.
This is not intended to be commentary, as that is well covered via TV, radio, the FISA website and the newspapers. Plus it's difficult to get time amongst the other jobs. Here are odd bits and pieces those following the Games may find interesting.
Racing gets off to a cracking start, Romania's Constanta Burcica and Angela Alupei breaking the world record in the very first heat of the lightweight women's double sculls. At least it looks as if they do on the immediate scoreboard, but when the checked result is in, it's 0.01 seconds outside the old mark of 6:50.63. Still, good going. Nobody is then surprised when Australians Amber Halliday and Sally Newmarch, last year's silver medallists, then do break the record in the third heat, notching up 6:49.90 as the new marker. In the middle heat, Claudia Blasberg and Daniela Reimer show us a "we could if we wanted to, honest" cruise to the line, just 2 seconds off record pace and barely breaking a sweat. This is going to be one of the classier Olympic finals, for sure.
Huge local excitement in the first heat of the men's lightweight doubles, as Vasileios Polymeros and Nikolaos Skiathitis manage to beat reigning world champions Elia Luini and Leonardo Pettinari, forcing the Italians into the repechage (which will really annoy them). Oh, the cheek of it. And there was a four-second gap by the end, too - insult to injury. Back in 1992-3 Matthew Pinsent told the Oxford University squad he was President of - "don't give the other guy a reason to pull". He meant off-the-water behaviour, but I reckon the Greeks have just done exactly that - given the Italians a serious motivation for the semi and final.
First Blair, now royalty. Princess Anne is in the house, being chatted up by David Tanner in the VIP section. She's just watched the British women's quad do a better time than the Germans in winning their heat. Despite the wind rising a bit more now (first few whitecaps showing at the finish line), there's not a hair on the royal head out of place. The Danish lightweight men's four are breezing down the course as if they never had a problem in their lives, good to see them back on form at the right time.
Hugh Matheson's just pointed out that several of the Aussie men's eight have not raced internationally since Sydney 2000 - definitely Bo Hansen, Mike McKay, and I think both the elder Stewarts too. Not that they have been idle - McKay and Welch have been involved with the Boat Race (coaching and rowing respectively). and they had to go through stringent selection trials to get into this eight. For those who aren't tired of sibling news, this is the biggest of those stories - the Aussie eight contains three brothers; James and Geoff Stewart in the engine room, and younger brother Steve at stroke. USA do the British women's pair a bit of a favour by forcing Romania's eight into the rep with a classy push-and-sprint, thus giving Andrunache and Susanu some extra racing to worry about. Not that they will be bothered.
Someone's false-started in the first heat of the men's eights. Not sure who it is. They get back on the blocks and sit waiting, apparently for the launches to grab a bottle out of the water in front of the stakeboats. Luckily the wind has dropped if anything, and it certainly isn't picking up for these last couple of races: we may get away with a whole morning racing. It turns out that there was no actual false start - the aligner decided they had drifted just before starting, so they weren't straight. Australia had already been given a false start for getting there late. The long delay was then to pick up all the water bottles thrown into the water by the eights just before their original start, which were bobbing about causing trouble when they tried to restart. AUS win beating NED and GER reasonably comfortably.
Here goes the last race, with Canada versus the new US eight. Italy in the same heat have picked up some bad habits from the maple-leafers and are also doing lay-back. Pinsent said the other day "never mind lay back, I'll lay back by the pool when it's all over" - but the Canadians clearly don't agree. The Americans burst out to try and get them, coming back on CAN. Drum-beats are loud in the stands as the race builds to a superb climax, USA getting their bows in front with about fifteen strokes to go and both crews well over 40 - I clocked Canada at 45. For those who were wondering, they don't stop the rock-back when they start dashing, just sit up a little more at the front end and aren't as exaggerated at the finish. They don't seem to have any trouble racing at 45. But the Americans are the impressive ones - pure sprintology from Volpenheim and his ultra-willing mob. Can they beat Australia, though, whose motto is just "Believe" and who have even more to make up for than the States after Britain trounced them on home water in Sydney? The thing to remember? That no country or crew owns any medal by right, except possibly NZL's current women's double, and even they will lose or retire one day. You can't stop the Merkins on a roll though, and if they do snatch the men's eights, you can bet they'll be rewriting the British soccer anthem "Football's coming home" with new words to celebrate regaining the title they just know belongs to "US".
That will rock Spracklen's boat, his double world champion eight being sent to the repechage. Snerts to being unbeatable. Maybe the US have cracked their issues - instead of trying to win every world championship in between and then losing out at the Olympics, it could be a cleverer tactic to peak for the rings race and not get too stewed up if someone else takes the world crowns. I know which most people would prefer to win, and the one which will put your name in the history books. Meanwhile it's confirmed that both the US and Canada broke the old world best time in their scrap to the line, so the new senior world record now stands at 5:19.85. The good news for FISA is that it also breaks the real best eights time of 5:20.92 set by the Polish juniors in Plovdiv in 1999, so they no longer have to skulk about pretending the junior time doesn't count (if it doesn't, what is the definition of a world best?!). Phew.
Immediately after the last race FISA confirm that Monday's racing is aborted, and at the moment all the repechages will be raced on Tuesday in one batch. Having said that, the Tuesday forecast isn't great either, so they may end up delaying the rep day itself until Wednesday or Thursday and using the spare time set aside on Friday to catch up. I'm off to the diving, or whatever I can rustle up tickets for. Ciao bambini.
Rachel Quarrell at the 2004 Olympics.