Race Day – Repechage

Well today was probably the most important row of all our short careers! We had to place 1st or 2nd in our Rep in order to race in the A Final. No one wanted to row in the B Final we wanted to be in that A Final no matter what!

Today we were racing against Canada, Poland, Russia and Ireland. We knew that we could beat Poland and Russia as we had done this yesterday. But you never know what a crew can have up their sleeve. Canada I knew was very strong. They had made the final at the Beijing Paralympics so we had our work cut out for us. Ireland we weren’t sure of. They hadn’t fared very well yesterday, but they were in a tough heat. The only thing we knew of them was the race they had earlier in the season in Munich at the first World Cup race and I knew that they had come 3rd. So they were also potentially a threat.

The day dawned very sunny but again with the wind! We got to the course and found that it was a headwind again with a slight crosswind added to it and even stronger than yesterday! Not really what we wanted but the only consolation was that every boat had to deal with the same wind!

At the start Alex and I had to continue rowing the boat, me taking a stroke and Alex backing it just to stay in line, I was almost exhausted before the race. Once the race was underway we were able to stay in touch with Canada until about the 300 mark and then they just seemed to pull away. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Russia on my right and Ireland on my left. We continued to gain on Russia, just like we had done yesterday, with Lisa calling exactly where we were in relation to their boat.

Yesterday we had let ourselves down in the 3rd 250m so our game plan was to start to do a push at the 450m mark. At this point Lisa told us to sit up take 3 breaths in time with each stroke of the oar and then she called the push. Driving as hard as we could with the legs for ten strokes, then concentrating on our finishes for 10, then making sure we were getting clean sharp catches. By this point we were into our last 250m and we knew that we just had to hold this. Lisa asked again for us to dig even deeper.

I think we surprised the Russians as we pushed so early but we got a good distance over them, but then the Irish pushed and made some water back up. We dug deeper in the last 150m and were able to pull away and cross the line in 2nd place.

I don’t think my body has ever hurt so much; the burn in the leg muscles was unbelievable. But “WE DID IT” we had made the A Final at the World Rowing Championships! All I could think of at this point was getting air into my lungs and water into my mouth!

We had a cool down and were able to watch our women’s four race for lanes. They did well coming 3rd. Just before our race our Arms/Shoulders male rower Ben Houlison raced in his repechage and won by a whopping 8 seconds. So all in all it was a brilliant day for Australian rowing.

We now don’t race until Saturday the 29th of August, so we will be doing training rows each day. We are so excited and happy to be here that making the A final is icing on the cake. Look out world Australian Adaptive rowing is here to stay!