Thursday morning 10:10 am: very close repechage of the junior men's coxed fours has just opened the morning's racing. The stands are full and the conditions are good: quite calm at the moment. Cool and overcast.
Thursday morning at 11:22 am: we have just heard that there was a collision in the heat of the junior women's coxless pairs this morning. Italy were up a length on USA half-way down the course, when they caught a crab and slid sideways into USA's lane. The crews hit quite hard, but Italy recovered first and shot off towards the finish. While they won, they were disqualified and USA went through. Thanks to Oli Rosenbladt of the Independent Rowing News, photographer (an writer, he says) extraordinaire.
Weather Report. This will be updated each day and sometimes more often. The weather on the course is very variable today, wind shifting about.
Matthew Pinsent has now been spotted munching chips in the cafeteria: he has come up to inspire the GB juniors to new heights. It is also rumoured that Haining wants to come and present the HPL1x medal to his successor. No, Matty P is not wearing his medal (but I'll bet a whisky he's got it in his pocket).
Wind has gone round to headwind this afternoon.
Peter's Haining's turned up, but is rumoured to have repaired to the bar out of the grey weather. It's stopped raining now but there is a filthy headwind, slightly sheltering the nearer lanes (1). Pretty slow conditions all round. Wind speed in the finish tower is currently at 3.78 metres per second. (4:15 pm).
Friday morning. Racing has just started and the sun has come out (weakly)... There is a slight but noticeable headwind, cross from lane 6 by a few degrees. We have a press conference here at 2:30 and a photocall with Matthew Pinsent and Peter Haining. Mike Haggerty, the Worlds Press Officer, is currently ringing British PR people to see if they want to attend. He's playing a game with them: have you heard of the only British gold medallists at the Olympics? Not very many saying "yes" - and you wonder why we are not seen as a nation of sports fans....
Friday 12:40 pm, and we've just had a storming semifinal of men's Lwt 1x with James M. of the USA winning it, but closely. I think he was cruising in middle of the race, but with the Finn closing near the line he put on another spurt.
Headwind has blown up, and the sun is intermittent. The Swiss and Austrians are making plenty of noise for their crews, and there is a great atmosphere here in the grandstand.
Friday 2:50 pm. Racing finished a while ago and we are now taking a half-afternoon from the tight schedule to sort everything out. The FISA Congress takes place this afternoon, and we will be putting up a report some time on Saturday afternoon (between races, no doubt) following the press conference to announce the decisions made. Talking of which, Matt Pinsent is currently sitting with Peter Haining at the other end of the tent from us, answering the media's queries and being photographed. The two of them have been besieged regularly by the kids doing running and helping us: one jumped a mile yesterday when he realised that Matty P had been sitting next to him writing a report for the Sunday Times (yes, next week's) for several minutes. There are two lines of currency among the helpers now: stick pins (they have a competition to see who can collect the most) and MP/PH autographs.
Latest from Peter Haining: "Medals don't grow on trees. You have to take them off people." Iron lad.
What else? Well, we have a number of Olympians here competing: E. Lipa rowing in her third world-class boat this year, the Irish and Danish (gold) lightweight 4- in their HPL8+'s, Rob Hamilton from NZL in the 2x. He is on crutches on land, but whatever it is seems not to trouble him on the water. They won their repechage yesterday in style. Nicolai Taga is here too, in the H2+, and half of the Romanian FPL2x is the FPL1x. Germany's Olympic sweep spares are the German pair (men's). Oh, and Niall O'Toole is here of course.
More later.....
Saturday morning.
IT'S PISSING IT DOWN!!
We have had enormous trouble getting on-line due to the damp up here. Apologies for any delay. Reload the results index often to see what is new.
Lunchtime: It has stopped raining (briefly, I'm sure). We are logged on, which is red-letter news. Things are updated to the end of morning racing now, and we have fingers crossed for this afternoon's session. The atmosphere in the grandstand outside is great - much cheering and shouting for all the A and many B finals. Cowbells for anyone from Austria, Switzerland and probably several other European countries (judging by the races in which the aforementioned don't even appear). The band is going strong with the anthems, so presumably the trombone isn't leaking.
With our difficult login, could anyone who sees the split/brief results in a few minutes please check that RSR has them and put them up if necessary. Logging onto the newsgroup is a bit variable from this end. Blame BT and the British weather. Thanks.
Sunday morning:
As you may have guessed, Saturday afternoon was impossible for us as
well, so we logged on from our hotel as soon as racing stopped to upload
the results. Hopefully things will have dried out here now. Sun is
shining weakly, mild and warm conditions. Down by the start this morning,
it seemed to be slightly cross-tail from lane 6, but beautiful conditions
for rowing. It has been a lie-in today: racing starts at 12:30, and
before that we are about to go and watch a junior 300-metre sprint erg
competition. I hope they don't have hangovers - there was a juniors
party last night......
Meanwhile the organisers were at a ceilidh and barbecue near the finish. Much hilarity from various FISA bods: I swear it was the start-judge who twirled me round so enthusiastically in "Strip-the-Willow" that he almost hurled me over the bar. Peter Haining turned up, and when Trevor asked him if he was going to present his successor's medal, answered "well I've bribed the security guards, so if they don't let me I shall jump over the fence and do it anyway." We'll let you know what happens.
Also in evidence were several members of the British press corps. Dan Topolski was very amused to hear that "True Blue" had been discussed on RSR last year, and says that it will be out in November in the UK (first screening Leicester Square, which might be a Royal Command Performance if the Queen isn't put off by the swearing) and in the New Year in the States. The book rights have just been sold to an American publisher too. Incidentally, he says that "yes it is a reasonable representation of what heppened, but of course they have had to compress six months of hard work into a couple of hours." Plus he says (as many who were extras know) that the director knew nothing about rowing and couldn't have been a worse choice, so the rowing sequences aren't great. All names have been changed apart from him, Donald, and some other Old Blues.
Well we're off to see the ergs and to try and log in at the course. More anon.....
Sunday lunchtime.
Sun's out quite a lot now, and plenty of flag-waving in the grandstand
outside. I was up in the finish tower a few races ago watching the men's
coxed pairs finals, and I can say that the US 2+ nearly gave their 8th
place away. The strokeman stopped rowing before he was over the
bubble-line (which is about a foot after the finish itself, but he was in
fact so early that the Irish almost caught up. He smacked his head in
despair, but the verdict was theirs by 0.14 seconds. The photofinish
system here is pretty good - they can judge it by a bow ball. BTW, has
anyone spotted the dead heat for non-medal places yesterday? That was
not distinguishable even by an inch.
Half past two and we're still logged on (how's that for tempting fate?) I have to get partisan here and relate that I've just watched the most incredible A FPL2- final, with Great Britain snatching silver after a last-minute Searle-type dash. They must have been a couple of lengths off second place going into the last marker (500 to go), not much less with 200 metres to go, and covered the last few lengths in an astonishing push for the line. I'm delighted - takes us just a bit further up the medal table (at last). Okay, non-partisan hat on now. More later...
Racing's finished, with the German lwt eight shaving another 6 hundredths off their course record here to take the gold. FISA flag is down, the press tent is in absolute bedlam with reporters filing copy, and everyone's cracking open the beers. Great week, and the sun's been out most of today to celebrate.
BTW, Peter Haining did try to pull his successor into the dock when the medals ceremony for the HPL1x started. He got a royal public ticking off from one of the organisers, and then was allowed to rush out and give the winner a hug after the medal presentation. But he'd been up to his waist in the loch in the meantime, wearing his Atlanta kit....
Byeee....