200 m Races, Sept. 5, so close but yet so far!

After a day off spent touring Ravenna it was off to the races again!  This day was our best chance at a medal, the 200m race, our specialty!  3 races today - 76, 87 and 97.  Race 76 was at a respectable time of 2:40pm followed by 87 at 3:30pm and 97 at 4:50pm.  With much better conditions today, Judit lined us up quickly backing into the start platform where our tail was held by the start crew.  We got off to a good start and were neck in neck with the other Canadian teams, FCRC, Pickering, Gorging Dragons and Quinte Heat and 2 American teams, Dragon Max (our host team from San Francisco) and a team from Vermont, Dragonheart.  Wow, 200 m is fast.  The race was over before we knew it.  We ended up 3rd with a time of 56.489 s, less than 1 s off of 2nd place.  A great first race and our personal best so far.

Marshalling for race 87 was called as soon as we got back so off to the start line once again. Coach Ben impressed on us the need to have a better time in race 2 as our final standing would be the average of our 3 races.  Another great start but somehow we faltered in the finish and ended up 4th with a time of 56.819 just 1 second off of 3rd place.  One more race to go and it would have to be our best in order to be on the podium.

Race 97 proved to be our best, with a time of 55.50 s and a 3rd place finish.  Unfortunately, our average was 0.5 s more than Quinte Heat bumping us to 4th place.  The entire team felt great as we had left nothing in the boat.  We know the feeling now and need to sustain it through the 500 m races tomorrow.

200 m results 

(Richard took video so no photos!)