Olympic Impressions from Schinias. Day 1 - Saturday 14th August 2004.
The lake is flat as a pancake, the slight breeze predicted today hasn't yet materialised down on the water at least (flags just stirring high on the flagpoles). Everyone's been up since 5-6am getting ready: athletes moving their muscles about to get warmed up, camera-men practising their zooms, Greek volunteers throwing everyone smiles and "kalimera", and press bunnies running through the communications options (limited) and frantically mugging up on athlete biographies.
The funniest thing is the way everyone says "last year" meaning "four years ago" - since the Olympics runs on tramlines, the same systems each time, it makes Sydney feel like yesterday to those who routinely tread the five-rings path. Except the athletes, that is: their sense of time is extremely well-defined, and you don't catch them imagining that the last forty-six months was really ten.
It's 8:20am, and FISA commentator Paul Castle, who is doing insider reports for Canottaggio Vero, is wandering around in front of the media grandstand trying to find the cars he and John Boultbee are supposed to have to take them down the course next to the crews. At this rate they're going to have to run beside each race while telling us what's going on.
Oddly, finals-atmosphere aside, it only feels like a 'normal' world championships, other than the stellar array of talent here both on and off the water. Tony Blair will apparently be visiting the rowing course later today, but no sign of anything yet. You keep seeing well-known commentators from every country as well as the ex-champions they have all hauled in to help. Roland Barr was around earlier, and being modestly deprecating, claiming he wasn't really an 'expert' (as if!). Tim Foster is lurking beside the finish tower, and Marnie McBean has prime position beside the finish line doing overview for some Canadian network. What turns it into the Olympics is going into the press centre and seeing TVs dotted everywhere, each showing a different sport getting under-way, from gymnastics to beach volleyball. Then you are in no doubt that you are involved with the biggest sporting bonanza on earth.
8:30am - and.... let the Games begin. Women's single scull, and Katrin Rutchow-Stomporowski has decided to go blasting out, presumably just in case the wind blows up and her initial heat time is taken to decide who makes the best lane in the semi or final. She's not at high rate as she comes past the stand, but clearly pushing hard, more like very strong steady-state. The others clearly racing it out - qualifier Femke Dekker managing third albeit 20 seconds behind Rutchow and 12 behind Switzerland's Lüthi.
By the way, I'm not even trying to do full race commentary, because between TV (BBC and Eurosport in the UK alone), radio (similar), FISA's racetracker and reporting, the written press and the Athens website, there is plenty of coverage. And I keep having to run round to the interview rafts to find out what the GB athletes think of their performances, so it isn't possible to spend the whole morning typing. What happens on the water will be pretty well picked over, so this is different. For now I'm going to post a daily "Olympic Impressions" report of things I think you might find interesting, and which most people watching at home would be unable to see.
I'm being allowed to hot-desk with NBC at the moment, because there have been snarl-ups with booking space in the grandstand and mine isn't organised. In front of me to my left is Team BBC, with regulars Dan Topolski, Garry Herbert and Gillian Lindsay, while Steve Redgrave has been lurking about and just gone off to do a piece to camera to open the BBC coverage (on about three hours sleep after helping present their footage of the opening ceremony). To my left, NBC are in full commentary flow, with champion ex-coxswain Yas Farouq educating American viewers about rates, muscle groups and who to watch.
In the next section of desks to the right sits Rob Waddell, who is here to commentate for NZ media, and currently watching his wife Sonia, who led Mirka Knapkova for two-thirds of their heat, being overhauled as the scullers approach the finish. He told me earlier that he is missing being on the water, but that he thinks it is easier for rowers to make come-backs two Olympiads later, rather than immediately after giving up. An interesting comment - perhaps we should watch this space. His pick for the men's single was Hacker, who is in very good shape, but Rob did point out that he hadn't seen Olaf Tufte in action much, just heard from the Norwegian that "things weren't going well" the other day, so that may be an element of gameplay.
In front of Waddell sit Hugh Matheson and David Goldstrom from Eurosport: Goldstrom was doing the opening ceremony commentary until late last night, and looks more than a little downtrodden with fatigue, though he hasn't lost his voice yet. A bit further along are Alan Green and Martin Cross for Radio Five Live, while Row2k's Ed Hewitt and Ed Winchester from the 'Rowing News' seem to be still lurking in the media tent, but flit about occasionally.
Heat 5 of the men's single, and world record-holder Marcel Hacker is eating up the course despite a steadily-developing head-wind. He is staying with coach Andreas and agent/press-man Oli in a newly-built hotel very near the course, and apparently Marcel is doing all the cooking for the trio in a huge camper-van which they have sitting in the car-park. (Mostly pasta, if you must know). It looks as if he's being given a fright by first China and then Cuba, but he looks pretty happy at the end, doing his trademark point to the skies for a moment, before picking up the sculls again and paddling off. Andreas confirms later he was not pushed at all, just relaxing while making sure he finished first.
Everyone knows about Kenyan Ibrahim Githaiga's sad loss when his coach Juvenalis Gitau was killed less than two weeks ago in a car-crash. In the same race is Juri Jaanson, the Estonian who won the first World Cup regatta of the season. I didn't know until just now when I heard Yas mention it that Jaanson is deaf, and also has sight problems. Ivo Yanakiev led him to 1400 gone, then Jaanson shoved the rate up and whisked a length out of the Bulgarian inside ten strokes. Cue much cheering from the supporter stands, which is great because there probably aren't many Estonians here. The end stand is fairly full, across the lake from us, and as they clap Githaiga over the line, nearly a minute behind Jaanson, a few people start to fill up the second stand. By the end of this week the six full-size grandstands should be crammed with people.
The women's pair has been eventful this week - first a confusing story about a dope test for Romanian Viorica Susanu, then a muddling two days in which her pairs partner Georgeta Andrunache was moved to row in just the eight, then back again. It's unclear how much this was ROM keeping everyone (including their rowers) guessing and how much was a genuine selection dilemma, but it seems to be solved now and Andrunache is definitely doing the pair, as well as doubling up in the eight, where they go head to head with the USA.
Meanwhile the Romanian federation has finally set the record straight with a release about Susanu's doping difficulties. It emerges that on 26th July one of Susanu's samples was listed as "inconclusive" at their national doping laboratory, and therefore a second sample was taken to re-do the entire test. To quote them directly:
In the second heat of the women's pairs, Juliette Haigh caught literally a boat-stopping crab which threw her out of the bow of the New Zealand boat. Stroke girl Nicky Coles brilliantly caught the blade-handle as the boat came to rest, and after getting thoroughly soaked, Haigh was able to clamber carefully back into the shell so that the pair could finish the course and avoid disqualification.
Ginn and Tomkins are off in the men's pairs (by the way it's 'ginn' cf 'gone', with a hard g, not soft, ie no tonic jokes). These two are hilarious the way they think up quips for the press. Tomkins' latest one is that he's rowing his age (38) at the moment, and plans to go up a pip when he turns 39 before the semi-final. NBC have dubbed them 'the Gruesome Twosome', which they apparently like. They row gloriously - it will be a damned shame when either retires, and I hope if Tomkins does stop that Ginn keeps going a little while longer to bring his magic to the rest of the Aussie squad.
I'm going to have to bring this to a stop at the moment - things to do - but there may be some more wibbling later tonight. There will be an update link on the RS news page if so.
So, what else has been going on?
After the men's pairs we had good races from the W2x and M2x crews - the Evers-Swindell twins impressing everyone with their solid long strokes, sweeping right through the water at a pulsing steady rate. The wind was picking up a lot, and the temperature was really steaming - even the increasing and rather variable cross-head wind didn't really cool things down. The comment goes round the media grandstand that Tony and Cherie are now in the house - apparently they're sitting up in the VIP section behind me and to the right, but I can't easily see, and anyway going to goggle at the British PM seems like a silly thing to do.
We finish racing on the men's fours, and the Canadians get the ball rolling with a canter down the track chased by Poland a length-plus back. They do the last 200m at an elaborately steady rate 33, with the wind dropping a little, but there's no doubt they're pulling hard. Loads of lean-back, which NBC have started calling "Sprack-back". The other day Pinsent suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that perhaps the Canadians were trying to fool everyone. He claimed they might be waiting for everyone else to copy them, and were then going to shift back to a more upright body position in time for the men's eight, four and pair finals. One ex-rower journalist commented "makes my back ache just watching them" when the Canadian eight rowed past the other day. I know what he means.
Heat two was a British win, though Italy defied all expectations and their own trademark "fly-and-die" race strategy to claw back something like a length over the middle quarters of the race. That race also answered the "American question" which had been bugging pundits ever since the class 4- act who won in Lucerne six weeks ago were hauled lock stock and smoking into the US eight. Slovenia were only a length off Italy, but the USA was nearly ten seconds behind GBR. The wind strengthened between the first two heats, but also turned a little more cross, at least near the finish line.
The third heat was a humdinger which bagged Australia the win over NZ, slightly bizarrely since both were well clear of the much slower race between Germany and Russia for the third qualifying spot. Germany won that, despite looking far from their best after a recent line-up change.
Putting medals in perspective, quite a few countries deliver bonus payments to athletes who win gold. The former Iron Curtain countries tend to award smaller payments for silver and bronze, too, but this isn't as widespread. The going prices (in US dollars) for an Athens gold medal are - USA $250k, Romania $87k and half that for silver, Russia similar and China $230k, to name but a few. Now can you see why the Romanian women have had such a reputation for doubling up?
With the BBC cameras in attendance, every British crew was being pulled in on the wind-down rafts and picked clean by the vultures (sorry, parachuting journalists), while wearing ice-jackets to helpe themselves cool off before paddling off again to wind the muscles down. Needless to say, as the GB M4- comes in, the hordes descend, something like thirty journalists (TV/radio/papers) crowding round to interview the apparently newsworthy ones. Pinsent gets the most attention, of course, partly because James has almost lost his voice (says it's the dry heat out on the lake) and Ed and Steve cleverly sneak away fast but unobtrusively while Matt is answering some longwinded featurey question. This gives them time to cool their legs with a soak in the lake off the raft, before rescuing Pinsent from the microphone-toting hordes and paddling away.
We finish the racing day with the discovery that the BBC team has eaten everything in the cafeteria, and a scurrying rumour that FISA is planning racing schedule changes, because they have been receiving worrying wind forecasts. Yup, it's confirmed at a hasty press conference. Last year's sinking conditions on the lake at the 2003 juniors involved winds of about 9-11 m/s (roughly double it to get mph). Sunday's wind is now predicted to rise from 2-3 m/s to 4 early (which is fine) but continuing to pick up to 5-6 m/s by mid-morning. To help them get finished before this happens, FISA are closing Sunday's races down to one every 7 minutes, and if that means the TV cameras miss the first 500m of a race, too bad.
They are also getting sure that Monday's wind will be too high to row in (current prediction somewhere between 9-14 m/s at 9am, let alone later). Tomorrow they will confirm if they are going to cancel Monday's programme completely, which would not (yet) lose reps, but move them entirely to Tuesday, by which time it is hoped things will have calmed down a bit. Even if they still have to shift on, the tiny programme here allows for a lot of catch-up before the end of the week, though it may feel more like a World Cup with crews racing daily without rests in between.
So, Group B starts tomorrow, and after that we will see. Fingers crossed that if it does blow strong (which seems likely) it calms down again quickly in time to restore order before the weekend.
Rachel Quarrell at the 2004 Olympics.