Racing Underway in Lucerne!

  Yesterday was our first chance to get out and race outside of the squad, and across the board, Team USA raced aggressively and set a good tone for the regatta.

Erin and Elle off the start!

  Our pair, Elle Logan and Erin Cafaro, laid down some fast 500m splits en route to a solid win in their heat. We are all cheering them on for their semi this afternoon!

Stesha, Natalie, Adrienne "Hammer", and Kate racing to a record!

  Our two quads also did a great job yesterday. USA1, with Kate Bertko, Adrienne Martelli, Natalie Dell, and Stesha Carlé, pushed through the field to break the world record, but finishing a hair behind Germany. The rematch on Sunday promises to be more great racing! Our USA2 quad of Megan Kalmoe, Kara Kohler, Kady Glessner, and just-Wednesday-qualified-for-the-Olympics-in-the-1x Gevvie Stone had a tough draw and raced well. They will be racing for top 2 in the repechage this morning.

Me, Susan, Jamie, Amanda, Meghan, Taylor, Caroline, Caryn, and Mary!

  We had a really solid first race together in the afternoon and were excited to learn afterwards that we'd also broken the world record. More importantly, though, we qualified for the final Sunday, and are excited for the opportunity to race our brains out again!

Ken bending it in his heat!

  Our men's single, Ken Jurkowski, finished a strong second in his heat to advance to the quarterfinal today. And our lightweight women's double raced well in the bumpy conditions and will race the repechage for a spot in Sunday's final.
  In the meantime, we are enjoying Lucerne as always--the beautiful city, unbeatable breakfasts, and friendly people.
  Thanks for your support and GO USA!

Bled 2011: Ready for the Final!

Out of the blocks in our heat.   Photo courtesy of Igor Meijer.

Tomorrow is the big day for us: lining up against Canada, Great Britain, Romania, the Netherlands, and China for the World Championships final. We go off the line at 1:24pm here in Bled (that's 7:24am Eastern and 4:24am Pacific); you can watch the racing live on TV (Eurosport) if you're on this side of the pond, and live on Universal Sports here. There is also a live race tracker with audio commentary here.

It's always a bit funny to me to have a year of work boiled down to a single race, but I am nothing but excited for tomorrow's final. We have done a lot of solid work, have prepared for this, and have really come together as a crew. We are ready to test ourselves, and I can't wait for our race tomorrow.

Today's racing by USA crews both buoyed and inspired us to go to a new level in our final tomorrow. The women's quad had an incredible final, never letting up the pressure on Germany even when both crews had miles of open water on the field, and took silver, notching the first medal of the regatta for USA crews.

Megan Kalmoe, Adrienne Martelli, Natalie Dell, and Stesha Carlé: 
the USA W4x killing it!  Photo: Allison Frederick 

The men's eight never quite hit their stride in the B-final. In spite of having a solid piece, the guys finished a few seats down to Ukraine, yielding the final Olympic qualification spot. It is really tough to see your friends and teammates come that close to the mark, but the guys already have their heads in the game as to getting back on track for qualification next year, and I know they'll make it happen.

USA M8+ at the starting line.  Photo: Allison Frederick.

And in action earlier today, our teammates in the women's pair held off a late-charging Canada to qualify the hull for the Olympics by 0.06 seconds. Way to make it exciting for the folks watching back home, Kady and Caryn!

USA W2- out of the blocks.  Photo: Allison Frederick.

For now, it's an early bedtime and getting ready for our race. So much training, tapering, and now...racing is here! I can't wait to sit on the starting line with my boatmates tomorrow and feel all this energy ready to unleash. So ready to race!

We've had an incredible outpouring of support here in Bled and from messages coming in from overseas. It means so much to me and to all of us to know that you are cheering us on from the grandstands, from your living rooms, from in front of your computer! Thanks for all of your support, and Go USA!

One Down, One to Go in Bled!

USA W8+ out of the blocks!   Photo courtesy Allison Frederick, USRowing

Yesterday, we had our first race, and it was both a solid piece and a good starting point for us to build on. We lined up against Great Britain (who we raced a month or two ago at Henley, and who a few of the women in the boat had raced against in Lucerne), Germany, and Ukraine. It's funny that racing at Henley was on my mind, because the starting area here is also packed with spectators--something very rare at a World Championships (usually the coaching bike peloton are the only spectators!) But just like at Henley, it doesn't matter what's happening around you as soon as you're locked into the blocks and ready to race.

The racing switched to eight-minute centers yesterday to try to alleviate some of the launch wakes, but there was still a lot to do back in bow pair as we went through some bumps in the first 500 meters. However, we were all focused in on our race plan, and executed it from start to finish. It's great to be dialed in to one another, and I think we're all looking forward to building off of this race and finding another gear.

We also had a lot of fun yesterday on the bus playing with stickers. (Yes, we were a bit loopy when we came down for our second row!) My mom brought some obnoxiously American stickers--sparkly, patriotic, and purchased at Walmart--and we decided to see if we could "tag" other rowers on the overcrowded bus without them noticing. At first, it was just our fellow teammates, but then we got bold and moved on to the Greek lightweights sitting next to us. They really got into it--one of the women gave her (male) teammate sitting in front of her a big hug, surprising him enough to sneakily stick one on the back of his shirt. Susan did well too, putting a "Happy 4th of July" sticker on a cheerfully oblivious Danish lightweight guy. I also tagged a Chinese rower from the men's eight, who tried to tag me back for the rest of the bus ride. It's great how silliness doesn't have any language barriers!

The best, though, was our ride back, when we were on a much emptier bus. We tried to tag the Australian men's eight, but they were not amused. So instead, Susan and I launched a sticker attack against the guy sitting behind us--Matthew Pinsent! Unbeknownst to us, he put all of those stickers on my back, which we didn't realize until we were off the bus and headed back to the hotel! However, we did run into him in the mini-mart a few minutes later, and luckily had a few stickers left...although he was very careful to get in a different check-out line, we managed to make the last tag of the day a good one.

This morning, we got to sleep in, and get to cheer on our teammates racing today in reps. On the adaptive side, we're pulling for ASW1x Tricia Downing, ASM1x Ron Harvey, TAMix2x Anthony Davis and Jacqui Kapinowski, and LTAMix4+ Alex Stein, Eleni Englert, Emma Preuschl, Andrew Johnson and Eric McDaniel. After that, it's M2x Tom and Pete Graves, LM4- Will Daly, Ryan Fox, Robin Prendes and Anthony Fahden, W4x Megan Kalmoe, Adrienne Martelli, Natalie Dell and Stesha Carle, M2- Tom Peszek and Justin Stangel, and W2x Kate Bertko and Sarah Trowbridge.

Go USA!

Allo! Wir sind in München!

We arrived this morning bright and early in Munich, greeted by cool temperatures, much-needed coffee, and perhaps the best "Welcome" sign I've ever seen!

yes, those are real pretzels!

 So maybe that sign wasn't for us, but we were greeted enthusiastically by team boatman Andreas (sadly, sans German-style Bieber-lookalike assistant Marcel.) After a quick stop by our hotel, we were off to the racecourse to rig our boats and go for a quick paddle.

Look out, Susan! I think that's a shark...

Most of our men's team has been here for a few days already, and the non-camp boats will be joining us soon. One of the really fun things about Worlds is getting to catch up with teammates and coaches who've been training across the country. By the time racing starts, the USA will have over 100 athletes, coaches, and staff in town...the evening "training table" with everyone is always filled with great conversation and antics.

Poster from the '72 Olympic Games...no women rowing yet!

Our first rows over here have been pretty solid--we've made a few minor tweaks to the equipment and the lineup, and practices have been going well. The course here (the Rowing venue from the 1972 Munich Olympics) is very blocky and utilitarian, but the water is also crystal clear, and the weather has been sunny and calm. We even got to cool off a bit after practice--a little dip is the anti-jet lag!

ice baths can be fun!

We'll keep settling into the rhythm here and getting adjusted to everything. Yesterday we also enjoyed watching the live video of the Pan American Games trials-congrats to Margot, Meg, Ken, and everyone else on their wins yesterday! That's all from Munich for now...off to dinner!

Oh, and you can see a slideshow from our first few days in Germany here: