In Austria

So I'm in a little town in Austria called Linz for a World Championship regatta race prior to heading to Beijing. It's been a whirlwhind for the past week and I'm just starting to get settled over here. We left Princeton last Thursday packed up ready for Beijing, and flew to San Jose where the entire Olympic team is going through processing, meaning getting insane amounts of clothing and being reminded not to embarrass the United States in China. Because of our racing schedule in Austria, we were the very first group of athletes (meaning my lightweight four, not the entire rowing delegation) to go through the processing center at San Jose State. We watched a few power point presentations, and then were handed a shopping cart in order to get 'uniformed'. We were like kids at Christmas as we watched our shopping carts get filled up with more gear than I could possibly have imagined. The opening ceremonies uniform, which I won't be able to wear at the games since we can't attend, is a blazer, dress shirt and slacks by Polo. We had tailors from Polo on hand to fit us and do the alterations on the spot (Polo wanted to make sure the athletes look right on TV).

Anyway, a few hours later we were on a plane to Austria in order to get here in time to adjust to the time change ahead of our racing. We are racing an eight here at the World Championships with our entire training group that has been together the entire year, which is a huge plus for us because the group is so competitive that it keeps our level of performance high and sharp heading into the Games. We raced the heat a little bit tired because we came in from the States three days prior, but we are expecting to be feeling more 'with it' by the final. Regardless, we won the heat with a solid race and are looking forward to the racing on Sunday. Here is a quick write-up and photo - http://www.row2k.com/worlds/features.cfm?ID=1784. By the bye, this is the event that I rowed in my very first World Championships ten years ago, and missed the gold by a tenth of a second to end up with a silver medal. I still haven't won a World Championship, and it would be nice to come full circle in this event and win it to close my career at the Worlds with a victory here before heading to the Olympics.

I've got very limited internet access right now, but I will try to post when I can and get some photos up when possible...