It was a successful week of racing out in Munich for the Molesey boys at the first World Cup of the season, ending with one gold and two silver medals being hung round MBC necks...
In the Four, Hodgey's crew returned to the scene of their ignomious Worlds defeat ready to make amends, and this they did in style. TJ was of course due to race in the Four alongside the Blonde Bombshell from the Black Death, but an injury knocked him out. Even with a sub on board however the GB 4- dominated, completely destroying the field and winning by an almost embarrassingly huge margin in the Final. Some ghosts were thus laid to rest and the new racing season has started very strongly for them. And with TJ still to come back in to the boat, things look presently rosey for the flagship Four.
In the quad, Monkey was calling the shots as the new GB line-up tested its mettle for the first time on the international stage. A disappointing Heat was followed by a very promising repechage in which they lead the field to 1750m and then beat the Russians and Worlds medallists Estonia to the line. In the semi-final a good first kilometre put them in contention, but the strong cross-head wind knocked them off stride somewhat in the second half which meant that come finals day, they had to be contented with the B Final. The quad is such a strong event that alongside them in that race were the Olympic silver and bronze medal winning crews from Athens, as well as two crews, like them, still unqualified for Beijing. In that race Monkey's crew were second at halfway before a very close finish saw them across the line just ahead of Belarus but fractionally behind the Ukraine. Overall, only one non-qualified crew finish in front of them (Slovenia in the A Final) and with two Olympic spots still left open that is a promising result. They go to Lucerne in three weeks time hoping to build on the speed they showed in the Munich rep, and thence on to the qualification regatta in Poland three weeks after that with a real hope of claiming one of those last two spots.
The Eight (which included two Molesey boys in the shape of myself and Tom Solesbury) had a mixed regatta at the recent Munich World Cup. We got our best result of the Olympiad so far in bringing home the silver medal, but we were all actually very disappointed with that. Going into the regatta we knew that without the Americans (reigning Olympic champions) and the Canadians (reigning World Champions) it wasn't a full-strength field, but there was still plenty of competition to test ourselves against for the first race of the season. The Germans who just pipped us into second place at the World Championships were there, and racing on home water; the Chinese showed real speed in places last summer and are building now for their home Olympic Games; and the Aussies are back, with the legendary Jimmy Tomkins (three-times Olympic gold medalist and the only rower ever to be World Champion in every sweep-oared event: 2+, 2-, 4+, 4-, 8+) in the six-seat and two new guys as their stern pair for this year, both returning Olympians from Athens '04.
In the Heat we had a great race against the Aussies, going neck-and-neck to 1000m before we then steadily eased away. The Germans were nowhere to be seen - that was a nice feeling! That put us straight through to the Final whilst everyone else had to go through the repechage. The Chinese had been very fast in winning the second Heat, and we set about preparing for the race. Come the Final it was the wiley old Aussies who showed early, blasting out to take the race by the scruff of the neck and build a lead of almost a length by halfway. We had a great second 1000m, the Chinese under control and us coming back at the Aussies all the way to the line - but they had already done the damage, and we finished the 2000m still behind them and in second place with the Chinese securing the bronze.
In many ways it was a very encouraging regatta for us. We got our best result of the four years of the "Beijing 8+" project so far - and we showed that despite many disruptions of late through illness and injury we're producing speed and moving forwards toward August 17th... But we were all immensely frustrated to have let the Aussies best us in the Final after we'd dealt with them in the Heat. So we're now looking forward to facing them, the Canadians and the rest of the field in the Blue Riband event in Lucerne in two and a half weeks' time. Bring on Round Two...
