Lucerne Rowing World Cup 2010
By Esther Lofgren
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
New Blog Site!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Back in Princeton...
Our final in the 8+ was a good starting point, and while we have a ways to go, we all really enjoyed the intensity and the commitment that a race like that demanded of us. When we still had a few seats to go and not too much water left to make it happen, it was amazing to have such driven and absolutely committed women pulling behind me. Even if we have many things to work on before Worlds, that commitment to winning together is a critical piece, and it was great to experience that yesterday.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Final Day of Racing...Here We Go!
We went down to the Rotsee this morning for a quick paddle in the eight before racing started. It was beautifully flat and sunny, although the Empacher trailer near the boat racks had a single on it that looked like it had seen the wrong side of the enormous branch that had fallen on it last night! Ouch...I hate looking at broken boats!
This morning, we are hanging out at the hotel, napping, stretching, hydrating, and watching races online. So far, the US is off to a great start, with Susan and Meghan winning silver in the pair and Stesha and Kate taking bronze in the double. Our men's quad, who were 300m into their semi last night when racing was called because of the snapped bouy line, re-raced this morning. They took fourth, which puts them in the B-final, but they managed to sprint through defending World Champs Poland, which is awesome. Jake and Charlie led for the first 500m of the M2- B-final, finishing fourth. In the light men's double, Brian and Jon moved from fifth place in an extremely tight field with 1500 to go and wound up taking second in the LM2x B-final, a great performance. Warren and Glenn pushed through the leading Italian crew and through Norway in the last 500 to win the M2x B-final by just over 0.3 seconds! Gevvie sprinted through Canada's Isolda Penney to win the B-final of the W1x.
That's all for now--time to get ready to race!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Day one of racing complete on the Rotsee
Racing started Friday, and by and large, the USA had a great day.
On the women’s side, our pair took second and qualified for the A/B semi. Our doubles, which were racing in the same heat, took a smoking-fast first and second and also avoided the repechage. A few hours later, the two doubles raced together as a quad and took second—again avoiding the dreaded repechage! In the women’s eight, we raced with a last-minute lineup change, but had a solid piece and took first. The women’s single, Gevvie Stone, stuck right with the top finisher in her heat to take second and advance. In the light women’s single, Meghan Sarbanis faced a difficult day as additional entries changed the entire race progression and she narrowly missed advancing to the A/B semi in her second race of the day.
On the men’s side, our pair had a great heat, sitting up on GB’s Reed and Hodge for a good part of the race and holding on to second to qualify for the semis. Our doubles faced solid competition in the heats, and Warren and Glenn took second in theirs to advance to the quarterfinal. In the quad, the men took third to move ahead to the A/B semi. The men’s fours raced each other in their heat, a very close piece that saw both USA boats well ahead (15 seconds) of the third-place crew. With only one advancing to the A/B semi, the second-place USA crew then won their repechage and advance to the A/B semi as well. The men’s eight took third in their heat, and will line up against Turkey, Great Britain, and Italy in their repechage today. In the light men’s four, six strong heats worth of competitors put our guys just on the wrong side of qualifying for the quarterfinals; they will race in the C final today. The light men's double took second in their heat, but won their repechage to advance to advance to the A/B semi today.
Our race in the eight was a very solid piece. It has been a while since I raced 2K in an eight (although I did race in the Radcliffe Alumnae 8+ at Eastern Sprints this year, so perhaps it hasn’t been an entire year!). The biggest difference between racing a pair and an eight at the start is the noise level—it’s very quiet in straight boats, and so noisy in eights, with coxswains yelling in different languages and several times as many oars banging in oarlocks! But as soon as we started, it was just us doing our thing and racing our race. We definitely have a few things to work on before the final Sunday, but it was a good first piece together.
Today, our team is somewhat split, with the scullers and the pair having to race their semis, and part of our eight also racing in the women’s four. The rest of us have an easier day, with our main objective being resting up and being recovered for our final on Sunday afternoon. It can get a bit boring in the hotel—there’s only so much of the Tour that we can stand watching, and only so many postcards that you want to write, and only so many games of cards you want to play! (It’s not great for recovery to be walking around outside, especially since today it will be about 95 out—not too different from Princeton, where we normally train!) Luckily, when the internet is working, we can look up results, watch the racing, or at least watch silly videos on YouTube.
Good luck to all the USA crews racing today!
--all images courtesy of row2k.com--
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Race Prep (Tunes included!)
I thought I’d put up a playlist of the tunes I’m jamming out to during warm-ups and the down times between events. All tunes are available on iTunes and from other online music retailers. Enjoy!
Playlist for Lucerne WC 2010
- The Nosebleed Section – Hilltop Hoods
- I Turn My Camera On – Spoon
- Zero – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- Morning After Dark (ft. Nelly Furtado and SoShy) – Timbaland
- It’s Me, Snitches – Swizz Beatz
- Symphony (ft. Attitude, Bran’Nu and D.O.E.) – Timbaland
- Simarik – Tarkan
- Alejandro – Lady GaGa
- Armada Latina – Cypress Hill ft. Marc Anthony and Pitbull
- Marching On – Timbaland ft. One Republic
- Chillin’ – Wale ft. Lady GaGa
- We Do This – Krafty Kuts
- Whisper Song (Remix) – Super Mash Brothers
- We Run This – Missy Elliott
- Folsom Prison Blues – Everlast
- I Make Her Say – Lady GaGa ft. Kanye West
- O.M.G. – Usher (Prod. by Will.I.Am)
- Fembot – Robyn
- Battling Go-Go Yubari in Downtown L.A. – edIT
- Let Me Think About It – Ida Corr
- If You Crump Stand Up – edIT
- I Can Transform Ya (Remix) – Chris Brown ft. Lil’ Wayne, Swizz Beatz and Teairra Mari
- Dancing On My Own – Robyn
- Upgrade You – Jay-Z ft. Beyonce
- Eanie Meany (Fatboy Slim Mix) – Jim Noir
- Pursuit of Happiness – Kid Cudi
- The Way I Are (Version Francaise) – Timbaland ft. Tyssem
- I’ll Be Around – Cee-lo Green ft. Timbaland
- It Takes a Seven Nation Army – Apathy
- They Come Around (ft. Conscience) – Apathy
- Dominos – The Big Pink
The weather is getting warmer and sunnier each day, and tomorrow looks like it’ll be a beautiful day for a race! We drew Germany, China and Poland for our heat—very solid competition. Can’t wait to race tomorrow! My event will be at 1:42pm Lucerne time (7:42am Eastern DT), and you can check it out here: http://www.worldrowing.com/index.php?pageid=116.
Go USA!