Racing round-up

All of the Eight plus Christian, our coach.

So it's a couple of weeks since we have raced, lots has happened since then and soon I will need to hit the gym more often.  I've got a few things happening over the coming days including a conference with Best Western and Atos tomorrow and then heading on up home to see my family.


To the racing; the Eight is the biggest and fastest event in rowing, and an event that is becoming ever closer – meaning the margins between winning and losing, qualifying or not qualifying are closer than ever.  We had a consistent Championships with wins in the Heat and the Semi-final; sadly in the final we couldn’t quite make it to the front of the pack and came away with a silver medal.  The race itself was differcult due to choppy conditions in the second half, it meant making no mistakes and dealing with it as best we could.  It wasn't our greatest of rows, but we can't come away saying "if it wasn't for this or that we would have..." as second place is where we have been positioning all year.  A silver medal feels good, but our team is so successful and our ambitions are so high, that anything less than the win is a disappointment.  The winners of the event were the German Eight, they are a formidable force (world champions ’09, ’10 and ’11) but they’re not unbeatable – they just seem to be at the moment.  Placing in the top 7 at this World Champs automatically qualifies the boat for the Olympics – this is important as next year there is only one last qualification slot available.  It means the boat, but not the individuals, will be guaranteed a place on the start line in 2012.  For the next 11 months my sole aim is to gain a place on the Olympic Team.  If I do that, by trying my hardest and being the best I can be, I will be putting in the work to go for Olympic Gold.


If you missed the racing you can watch the semi-final here by scrolling through the clips at the bottom, the mens 8+ semi's are at the far right (we are semi-final 1).


You can watch the final on the BBC here  and you can watch Greg's video diary here (Greg sat 5 seats ahead of me).