So Day 2 of our Olympics trek has started in rain. It’s pass reasonably quickly and everyone in the stands are now dressed in identical yellow rain jackets, handed out by the organizers.
We now have DSL up and running so will finally be able to respond to emails, etc. That just happened this morning so full Beijing update will start tonight.
We saw some great racing yesterday. Rob Waddell from New Zealand came from a length down at the 1500m mark to win by ~2 lengths. Not terribly surprising, considering he won gold in 2000 and is quite likely the strongest and fittest rower in a generation. Also saw the Kiwis row through the Netherlands in the Men’s 4- in the last 500.
I would be careful reading too much into yesterday’s official results. While some crews raced to the finish, others took it down a couple notches when it was clear they qualified for the next round. (The GB M2x was a good example of this.) It’s hard to describe just how hot and humid it was yesterday, and I can see why they would want to conserve their strength.
Up today are the lighties, the women’s quad and the eights. The rain has cooled things off, and we’re looking forward to seeing the racing kick off!
By the way, our hero of the day yesterday was Darryl Reid. He’s the psyiotherapist for the New Zealand squad, and has access to all the athlete facilities. We managed to get his attention as he was cycling by yesterday and it was great to say hi. But he also very kindly brought us ice-cold bottles of water to drink and help keep us cool. Awesome!
Jed Christiansen 