Kiaora People,

 

Another World Cup down and unfortunately not quite the outcome we were after but certainly within the ball park of where we need to be. Over all it was a pretty damned good day for the New Zealand team, 4 gold medals, 2 silver, a bronze and very credible improving performances from the rest of the team as well.

 

On Saturday, in a blow to the validity of what I thought were my keenly tuned instincts we did not draw Australia afterall, in fact we probably ended up with the slightly easier of the two semis, at least thats what I thought. Again my insights turned out to be misguided and the depth of the pairs field came to the fore. Out of the blocks we were lead out by the Canadian crew who absolutely threw the kitchen sink at the first half of the race, they had about 3/4's of a length past 500 m's over us with Croatia and Germany not far behind. As has been our strength through over the last couple of years we slowly pegged the Canadians back through the 2nd 500m's and Croatia came with us. From the 1000 m mark we pretty much had to maintain our pace through to the end, Croatia never let off chasing us and Germany was fighting to catch Canada for the 3rd final qualifying position, though they did not quite make it in the end. We posted the fastest time and felt there was still room to launch something more for the final.

 

Sunday turned out to be an absolute scorcher, barely a breath of wind and temperatures around 30 - 32 degrees. Unlike the semi which was raced late in the afternoon we had a 11:00am start time, not that it made much difference to the heat. The best we could do was try and stay out of it as much as possible.

 

Digesting the final is a little difficult, in some respects the manner in which the race played out, meant some of the improvements we were looking for are there but at the finish line the margin was still the same as World Champs last year. The Australians, Canadians and French all managed to take big chunks out of us in the first 500 of the race. While we pegged back the French and Canadians and didn't get dropped by the Auzzies, we certainly have to find another gear to either not let them get ahead out of the blocks or be able to pull them back through the race.

 

All in all, a pretty good weekend. Mr Pick Wicks, the most overpriced irish bar in all of Switzerland, saw a few of us on Sunday night. It was quite amusing watch the dutch team and their supporters celebrating their first win in the mens coxless four, something they have been chasing for quite awhile.

 

And for the next couple of days we are fortunate enough to have a couple of days off hanging out in Lucerne, it is a very beautiful scenic city and while I plan to make good acquintance with my hotel bed I'll hopefully fit in some sightseeing as well.

 

Cheers All,

 

Nathan