ROWING SERVICE SPECIAL COVERAGE OF THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS 2006 AT DORNEY, ETON Knights to the rescue; races and faces WorldsBlog 2006 chapter 8b: Saturday 26th August Saturday from the press stands (RQ) Things kick off with the LM2x C final, followed by the Group A petite finals. Nick Mullins is doing a good crowd-rousing job by getting excited as he introduces everyone, and the non-grandstand area is already packed - not quite full, but quickly getting that way. Now, we're going to try and do a live-online commentary effort for the main A-finals - Trevor and I will share the typing, but you may not know who's doing it, as it depends on my commitments with other jobs. I had a lot of grief about the Nat Champs live-online commentary this year, because people said it was refreshing too often, so when the A-finals start I'll set it up to refresh every 3 minutes or so. If you want it to reload more you can do that yourself. The URL is www.rowingservice.com/worlds06/live-wchs06sat.html and coverage will begin at about 11:10 am. Slovenia's Majda Jerman's just done an amazing job holding off Gabriela Bascelli in the W1x B-final, with Olympic heroine Peggy Waleska relatively nowhere for Germany. She was flat on her back afterwards, knackered, and no wonder. Now Hamburger (NED) is going against Vonarburg (SUI) and finish-sprinter Karonen (SWE) for the men's B-final, with Karonen clearly recovered from whatever his problem was to grab the race win. OUBC giant Jamie Schroeder, who did an amazing job even qualifying for this for the USA (they have an elaborate time/race trial system) is last in the B-final, probably a bit lower than he would have liked. I hear from his research group, where a friend of mine works, that he's now officially splitting his doctorate studies between Oxford and a university in the USA, six months each. That will be good for his Olympic ambitions but not so hot for the Boat Race - students have to be in residence for certain amounts of time to be legitimate full-timers, and the maximum time DPhils get off is about 7 weeks. Just heard some very annoying news, that the Sunday Telegraph isn't going to want anything from me - feature writer Simon Hart is doing it all and that's only 800 words as some extra full-page adverts mean they're tight for space. Grr.

Copyright the Rowing Service 2006. Special Worlds 2006 coverage courtesy of Rachel Quarrell, Paul Azzopardi and Trevor Chambers. Additional contributions from Hammer Smith Esq.