Just a quick low down on what happened in our heat...

 

We had a reasonable draw for our heat, we faced Canada who had finished second in the first World Cup, and Germany who had beaten us in Poland but we had then beaten convincingly in Lucerne. The wind had been a pretty nasty side tail during our pre-race row in the morning and during the warm up it seemed to be side on. Once we got in the blocks however it seemed to be pretty behind us, meaning quick times were likely without upsetting our balance to much.

As it turned out that was pretty much the case, Germany went out fast ahead of us with Canada not far behind us, we pushed back through Germany in the second 500 metres and were holding Canada abut length behind us. In the second 1000 Canada seemed to edge back at us but for the most part it felt pretty well under control, though they pretty much kept the pressure on us right to the end, the result being a quick 6:22 for us, 7 seconds faster than the Auzzies in heat 2 and 4 seconds faster than the South Africans. The Australians had a much easier time of their heat, rating about 26spm at the end of their race compared to our 39.  You can't read to much into times and
speeds during heats though, everyone foxes a bit and the seedings they use are pretty rough.

 

All the other kiwi crews went pretty well, Nicky and Jules in the womens Pair had to go through the repecharge (2nd chance race) but were right up there with the Germans, who are the dominant crew this season, in their heat and won their Rep on Tuesday convincingly.

 

Just been down at the course this morning watching the nz mens coxed four have a race for lanes in preparation for their final on Saturday (only 6 entries so all through to final), they went ok, got lead out by US, GB and Germany but were right in the mix and didn't look like they were winding for the line. The womens eight was supposed to race as well but the last couple of races for the day were called off (including theirs) because of strong cross winds, bit of a shame they now have to try and psych up again for another attempt tomorrow.

For those of you wishing to follow races from Thursday all the kiwi races will be televised on Sky, details of NZ times are on  www.rowingnz.com (I'm sure most of you know this already but just in case) there is a live race tracker with audio commentary on the world rowing site www.worldrowing.com. Also the NZ Rowing site should have some updates through the week. There are also a few photos and reports of the kiwi crews on a new site www.rowing-world.com

Thats about all folks, I'll try and put up some photos on the blog site sometime after racing Thursday, haven't been very snap happy so far this week.