WCSN Blogs

Training is done. Our equipment is set. The technical focuses are set. We’ve rehearsed, and rehearsed, and rehearsed the race-plan.

Finals are tomorrow, at 12:55. Launch time is 12:00. We’ll race in lane 6.

We’re ranked 5th.

Our goal is top 3.

That’s it.

I love how sports can reduce everything to such simplicity.

1:01 pm, tomorrow…

There are some athletes that make everyone stop and watch.

Jamie Dean is one of them, though he might not know it. Jamie’s competing at Worlds in the “mixed coxed four”- the coxswain being critical because Jamie is blind.

I met Jamie and Priscilla, his seeing eye dog, yesterday. Jamie’s one of our U.S. Adaptive Team rowers competing at the World Championships in Munich (and shooting for the ParaOlympics in Beijing, held immediately after the Olympic Games there in August). Watching these athletes rigging boats, stretching, talking technique, getting nervous, and launching with the same intensity and determination of all the other athletes has to give you pause. While Jamie and I chatted about rowing, racing and life, I was stopped mid-sentence as several adaptive rowers powered wheelchairs past us and UP a set of stairs toward the boathouse. Wow! Wow! What can you say? How can you not be inspired by the whole situation? Wow!

After hearing more from Jamie, I decided (1) he had to write something for my blog to share with athletes and sports fans who might never see him on television, and (2) I had to become a volunteer at the ParaOlympic Games in 2012.

Jamie agreed, and today he sent me this to post:

“My first encounter with the national adaptive team was a chance meeting with the team’s manager, Isabel Bohn, at the Dad Vail Regatta in Philadelphia. Isabel was working the registration desk and one of her colleagues pointed me out to her after noticing my white cane.When Isabel approached me and asked if I’d be interested in trying out for the national adaptive squad, I had only one concern: would the athletes be serious enough? Now sitting in my hotel room counting down the hours until the first heat of my second world championships, I can say that the answer is a resounding ‘Yes!’

Our team consists of nine athletes in four boats. There is the coxed four in which I row three seat. All of my crew members have leg, trunk, and arm ability to one degree or another. There is Jesse, a recent graduate of Princeton University; Aerial, a masters rower out of Marin Rowing Club in San Francisco; and Tracy, a former college rower and masters rower in Philadelphia. Our coxswain, Ryan, is about to enter his first year at St. Joseph’s University, and I am a law and business graduate student at Wake Forest University.

The other three boats are fixed-seat sculls. The double is rowed by five-time world champions Scott and Angela. They have trunk and arm ability. The single scullers are Ron, a Californian who was an elite level rower from MIT before becoming disabled, and Laura, a former Paralympian in track and field, each of whom rows only with arms.

Often the term “adaptive” has a pejorative connotation. People think that because race times are slower and athletes are physically limited that, somehow, this means that our sport is not serious, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The training, the attitude, and the intensity are what one would expect of any elite level athlete. The competitiveness, too, is extraordinary because our rowers are fighting not only for medals, but for international acceptance and legitimacy.

I have been amazed at the growth of adaptive rowing even in the few years that I have been a part of the U.S. team. This year there are enough entries to have heats, semifinals, and finals in all categories but one. The quality of participants, too, has improved as nations have intensified their recruiting and training.

Ultimately, though, numbers and times don’t tell the whole story of adaptive rowing. I know, for example, that it is a sport every bit as serious as the non-adaptive rowing I did in college because of the caliber of the individuals involved. I am a competitive person. I enjoy going to an academically-challenging law school, I enjoy being in the top 10 percent of my class, I enjoy being in positions of leadership in clubs and organizations of which I’m a part. In short, when I commit to doing something, I do it enthusiastically and with the goal of succeeding to my maximum potential.

This is not a trait unique to me, but it is something all of my teammates possess. If adaptive rowing were an exhibition or a charity competition, none of us would be racing. The truth is that adaptive rowing is a legitimate, challenging, competitive endeavor just like rowing for the able-bodied. One who believes otherwise need only examine the participants in the sport who stand as living testaments to its validity.

Tomorrow at 3:20 PM I will have my first heat in the 2007 FISA World Championships. It will not be enough for me or my crew just to feel good about ourselves or to participate. We have trained all year for this one week of rowing. We want to win. I know that all those I will be racing share these sentiments. The bodies of adaptive rowers may not match those of the other competitors in Munich, but our hearts are the same.”

Follow Jamie’s racing at www.worldrowing.com. Learn more about the International ParaOlympic movement at www.paralympic.org, and find out how you can compete, coach, or support local adaptive athletes by contacting your country’s Olympic Committee.

Aug. 23: Munich, Germany. World Rowing Championships course.

We were credentialed today. We are officially “in the bubble.”

“Keep these credentials with you at all times. You need these to get into the course, the bus, the dining hall, medical. . . ” Everywhere that nobody else is allowed. As if friends and family could enter “the bubble,” anyway. It’s really hard to connect with people from the outside world, and not for a lack of phone cards or internet access.

You train yourself — and them — as best as you can through the years, to try to understand what it’s like “in the bubble.”

Cambridge, Mass., 1996: College graduation, and I’m trying to explain to my Grandma, who suffered through the Great Depression, why exactly I’m packing my degree into the car to drive to a small southern town and work a part-time job

“Because they have great water there, even in the winter! . . and I’ll have time to really train. . .”

Friends and family travel to races over the years and expect you to go have dinner and do some sight-seeing with them. “We haven’t seen each other all year. . .” Girlfriends don’t understand that you don’t want to hear how they’ll be so proud of you whether you win or lose. Friends want to make small talk about every day life, not realizing how critical it is for me to figure out how we’re going to get the power on the legs better on strokes 5 through 10 off the start. They just don’t understand. I can’t email back and forth about irrelevancies of the outside world and day-to-day life. I’m not there, and they’re not “in the bubble.” We’re disconnected regardless of any security guards or credentials.

“In the bubble,” nobody asks why you passed on the job offer, deferred the medical school acceptance, or postponed the wedding. The question asked “in the bubble” is

“Will they let you delay another year for Beijing?”

It’s easy to slip back entirely into the comfort of the bubble as racing approaches. My friends and family are learning, which means they know to not try to see me until after the finals.

The grandstands are where the bubble bursts after the final (at least for a few days).

Everyone can get into the grandstands, and from there they can understand what they’re seeing and hearing. A six-minute race from point A to point B reduces the whole huge process to a manageable size. No explanations are needed for them, or us, to appreciate what happens on race day. Everyone is “in the bubble,” whether sitting the grandstands or in the boat. Friends and family members get as worked up as me, and for six minutes they understand. We are together. And it’s really good to connect again.

The LM8+ finals will be shown live on WCSN.com Saturday, September 1 at 12:55pm. (That’s minus 6 hours for friends and family on the East Coast of the U.S. who aren’t in the grandstands).

It’s August already, and Boston’s black at 5:30 a.m. as we gather for morning practices. Soon, it will be dark when we leave afternoon practices, too, and that feels appropriate. Mother Nature is closing the curtains on another racing season.

Three weeks till the World Championships, and we’re tapering now. Our training volume has been halved and we’re emphasizing intensity and focus,

“Stay in the moment.”

Our coach reminds us not to think about the race results, or the world of friends and relatives watching us, from the motorboats today and from the grandstands and online in Munich. Just focus on taking each stroke one at a time as best as you can. That’s all you have to do. That’s all you can do.

Coach is right, and it’s good practice for Worlds, where a single chain of two hundred strokes will serve to define an entire season’s work.

Of course, off the water, all I can do is think about results and reflect on what the guys have done already to get to the starting line at Worlds. It’s been three years of incredible group effort building up this program of athletes, equipment, and funding at Riverside Boat Club.

When our coach started in 2005, our eight had yet to even win the Head of the Charles Regatta, raced on our home waters in front of our club’s own dock. That year we won, and the program has just kept building. This season we had three-dozen rowers gather from across the country to join the effort. That means a lot to everyone involved.

Today, our second eight won at Canadian Henley. That’s the third year straight for our program’s second boat. That means a lot to me, personally.

And now, on September 1, our top boat has a chance to win a medal at the World Championships. That would be so great to help keep the program building, for everyone here now and for everyone who’ll join the effort in the future.

Moments are defined by their context. For us, that is all the strokes already taken, and all the strokes yet to come. It is hard for me not to think about that. It’s hard for me to black those out.

Riverside’s winning eight at Canadian Henley was stroked by Cameron Booth, and included Andrew Trevor Braasch, Andrew Hashway, John Dise, William Garthwaite, Peter Morelli, Niles Kuronen, Sean Wolf, coxswain Maria Jose Telleria, assistant coach Miranda Paris, and videographer-extraordinaire, Emma Bast.

From the land of precision timepieces, this year’s Lucerne Rowing World Cup marks the tenth anniversary of the FISA Rowing World Cup racing series.

I first raced in Lucerne in 1998. What I’ve noticed over the years is how deep the fields have become, and how this produces really exciting racing. This year, I counted twenty-four countries represented in the finals of the Olympic-class events. That is unbelievably encouraging for the sport.

I am so impressed by how rowing is growing around the world. It is a tribute to the beauty of the sport, certainly, but also it is also a credit to the work of FISA. This year, FISA has organized Junior, Senior, and Under-23 championship regattas in Europe, the Far East, and South America, plus an Olympic qualification regatta in Africa. It’s wonderful to see the sport be spread and embraced globally.

Rowing is, to me, a quintessential amateur Olympic sport. It is a balance of physiology, technique, and fair competition. It rewards teamwork and lots, and lots, and lots of hard work. As the Olympic movement evolves in the age of big money television, I’m thrilled to see the Lucerne World Cup broadcast live around the world. Hopefully it will have staying power in the face of glitzier sports that produce two-second clips of dramatic flips and hard hits.

So far, so good, thanks to FISA. Developing rowing worldwide generates not just exciting racing to watch, but also broad international support for the sport to stay in the Olympics. Here’s to another great ten years, and seeing everyone in Lucerne 2017.

Great,

Greg

Greg Ruckman trains out of Riverside Boat Club in Boston, which daily launches sixty boats with rowers of all ages and abilities (mostly between 5 and 7:30 A.M.) He was pleased to see how well the two Dutch fours did in Lucerne (gold, silver), and that Rasmussen is in yellow.

Real life is complicated.

Sports are supposed to be straightforward.

In sports, we create for ourselves small, self-contained worlds. Each sport is an idealized, simplified version of life. We have clearly defined players, rules, goals, and results. Every match is short and small enough to get your mind around and make sense of.

Children love games. They understand them instinctively and are comfortable within those smaller worlds. Events progress in an orderly way to a clear result. Everything is transparent and understandable.

Contrast this to the complexities of real life. There is no rule book for office politics or parenting. What is fair in love and war? What is the end goal, anyway? Is God or the IRS keeping score? Can I insert another quarter to play again? What different rules apply if I’m born poor or a minority?

The point of sports is to create a fair start, with equal opportunities for anyone who chooses to play. Sports are intentionally an escape from the unclear conflicts of real life, and adults spend billions to escape by watching and joining in these idealized worlds.

Drug testing in sports has brought the complexity of real life onto the playing fields of Olympic and professional sports. The problem is that in regulating drugs, we have acknowledged that the human body is a piece of equipment, and we have decided that altering that equipment in ways outside of the sport is unfair. Of course, the human body just happens to be the most complex piece of equipment on the field of play, and that makes the rules and their enforcement not so simple.

The complexity is particularly troubling for sports because it cuts across the notion of fairness from transparency in sports. The drug testing rules are too complex and too arbitrary in their application. Who knows what is going on? Just as with match-fixing for profit, once athletes and spectators realize transparency is lost, then the spell is broken. We know only that we don’t know everything and there is no order. Sports are no longer separate from the rest of life and no longer special for being so. Sports are no longer real in the way they have to be. They no longer exist as sports, but as shows.

I watched the USADA v. Floyd Landis hearings online.

What was most telling to me was how differently top athletes think and act in comparison to lawyers and scientists. Scientists pursue truths. Their thought processes and methodologies revolve around and revere nothing but the pursuit of a more accurate understanding of the world. They are incredibly honest in this, with themselves and each other, in their actions and their statements.

Attorneys will also say that the legal process pursues truth, but that they aren’t allowed to care how accurate their individual positions or statements are, only how accurate they appear. It seemed to me they instinctively seek to contain evidence for as long as possible in order to have maximum flexibility to present their own version of situations, hopefully in ways that will be just a little more persuasive than the other lawyers’. (To see lawyers in this case use a tone of indignation when accusing Floyd of a win-at-all-costs attitude was humorous.)

USADA and Floyd had top attorneys who seemed pretty good at containing evidence. (I predict that the testimony of most witnesses will not be found in training tapes for classes on IRMS.) It wasn’t until the seventh day of the trial that the personality and overwhelming knowledge of an expert witness was uncontainable. That was May 21, when Richard Young cross-examination of Dr. Meier-Augenstein. That interaction was, in my opinion, a situation where the weight of a man full of facts and understanding simply crushed an attorney’s attitude, semantics, and cherry-picked points.

By minute 60 of the session, I was surprised that Mr. Young kept opening up more of his own positions to the Dr.’s corrections, and then allowing him to be so thorough in his explanations. My guess is that Mr. Young knew the Doctor had done serious damage to USADA’s case, and was trying to undo it by catching him in a slip-up that might serve to taint what so far looked like rock solid scientific understanding and explanations. As the questioning continued through minutes 65, 75, 85, I felt like I was watching a great break away in a long cycling race…

At minute 97, Mr. Young gave up the chase, and I had been convinced that USADA’s case should not have been brought against Floyd. Who knows if he used testosterone, but the testing relied upon by USADA in this case sure can’t help anyone now.

I can’t blame the attorneys from HRO for the situation. They have been hired by WADA, USOC and some dozen of the USOC Olympic sports governing bodies to go after athletes in different situations. It is their job to do so.

I believe the USADA v. Floyd Landis case has hurt sports and the anti-doping movement. The case cannot give confidence to the public that USADA is competent to make sports clean. Further, that case certainly can’t encourage athletes to think that if they use performance enhancing drugs then they will be caught, OR if the don’t use drugs, then they won’t be unfairly accused. That’s a very bad situation for everyone.

Also, USADA is wasting so much money pursuing Floyd. The case is grounded on a bad test run under circumstances that are questionable. Good reliable tests for many substances and methods are available and could be used more regularly. Additional good tests can be developed through research. This just takes money to buy and use good science. Good tests go unchallenged, are applied fairly, and build trust in the rules. How many scientifically straight-forward tests can a couple million dollars fund? If USADA loses, do they have to pay all of Floyd’s attorneys’ fees?

The rules of sports have to be simple and fair. That is the point and attraction of sports. Drug use and drug testing threatens this, in professional events and the Olympics. If USADA would just rely on the scientists and the scientific approach to fact-finding, this would keep drug-testing simple and competitions as fair as possible.

The challenge, as I see it, is to contain the bureaucrats and their lawyers within the bounds of good science. If Floyd wins his case, this may be the best way to help make this happen.

In 2003, Greg and some other rowers experimented with simulated altitude using their “R2D2” machine to try and alter their own equipment. (R2D2 is USADA-legal). He and Steve pulled 1:41.2 and 1:40.9 hr. of power tests on the ergometer at 161 and 153 lbs., respectively.

Steve left the 2003 Munich World cup with a medal and some mad BMX skills. Thanks to a logistical snafu, we were told to “hot-seat” a hull with one of our women’s doubles. That meant practicing before and after them, so, we borrowed two of the coaching bikes to get ourselves to the course and back. These steel and tin constructions were boldly named “RANDOM” on the down tube, and that appropriately described their handling and shifting characteristics. I was not happy when Steve saw a skateboarding park and couldn’t resist a few “structural integrity tests.” His body and the RANDOM both passed.

The Dutch, being Dutch, bring their own bikes to international regattas. In the Athens Olympic Village their collapsible orange recumbents were the talk of the town. That’s functional. In Japan, we visited the velodrome near our hotel for some fun: “LOVE DREAM. LOVE NAGOYA. LOVE KEIRIN.” In Beijing, at the Olympic Exhibition Regatta, bikers in their business suits ruled the streets by virtue of their sheer numbers. Faster than driving cars, in Beijing or Boston.

In the background of today’s racing you’ll see the coaches’ peloton, shouting at their crews and each other. Sometimes this all creates comic relief. The site of a slow-motion tangling of humanity and handlebars somehow stands in appropriate contrasts to the smooth flow and harmony of the rowing in the foreground. Sometimes one of them is taking video while they go down. Catches curses in ten languages.

The Dutch men’s four sure flowed harmoniously, today. Relaxed, together, smooth, efficient, the way we all like to see ourselves in our mind’s eye. I love the feel of the fours. I want to race the four in the Olympics again, and I want to row like the Dutch. Watching that race is tough for me. There’s something about the four, and something special about the way the Dutch race it. You have the sense that the Dutch boats always go faster than their pure physiology should allow. Today, that was fast enough for silver and bronze in the four and lightweight four. Then, in their last event, the Dutch women won the eight to raise the flag before their home crowd. Hats off.

However, it was the Chinese who won that light four final, along with four of the six other lightweight and women’s Olympic-class events…That is astounding. In 2004, China didn’t win a single rowing medal. China’s wins, today, would have pushed them over the U.S. into first among all nations for the most gold medals across all sports in Athens.

China’s sudden success in rowing, like that in women’s swimming and running in previous quadrennials, has everyone nervous. China’s successes in swimming and running ended badly for those sports with dozens of positive doping tests. Today, the expressions of the British women in the quad looked telling to me. They finished second, well behind the winning Chinese crew. Last year, at their home World Championships, that British crew was in tears when they took second behind the Russians. Later, the Russian crew was disqualified for a positive drug test. Who knows, now, and that’s unfortunate for everyone, especially the Chinese.

In addition to their women’s quad, the British are on the rise again across all the mens’ lightweight, sweep and sculling events. They will have medal opportunities ranging from the single to the eight.

New Zealand is having continued success this year with their focus on the small boats. They must be leading the rowing world in medals-per-athlete. No Italians at this World Cup. Australia is also metering out it’s appearances. The U.S. sent only a handful of crews, all with new, untested, combinations. Wendy Tripician and Jana Heere bring home our lone medal after their spectacular debut in the lightweight double.

It is interesting to compare each country’s approach to developing teams for Worlds and the Olympics: the rise and fall of each country’s overall performance, the allocation of athletes between big and small boats, the approach to World Cups each year and the quadrennial as a whole.

The 2007 World Championships will be critical because countries have to earn qualifying spots for next year’s Beijing Olympics. Any country that fails to qualify in an event at this year’s worlds (top eleven in most events) has to fight for the few remaining spots early next year. FISA has done such a great job promoting the sport around the world that all the events are going to have strong fields. The U.S. will have to have it together this year to get boats to the starting line in Beijing.

The next step is the Lucerne World Cup regatta, shown live on WCSN.com on July 15, 2007.

And, don’t miss the real peloton live this Tuesday and Wednesday in the Cycling section.

Great,

Greg

Greg loves his second-hand 1990-something steel (no tin) mountain bike. He is a U.S. Cat-II on the road and his cycling heroes are Chris Horner, Jens Voigt, and almost every Rabobank rider. Greg’s next blog will focus on the Floyd Landis Hearings and the future of drug-testing in rowing and the Olympic movement. Then, it’s down to business as his team prepares to race at U.S. Trials starting July 30, 2007.

World Cups are awesome. They’re all about the racing – four rounds packed into three days. That’s enough adrenaline to flush out the accumulated psychological sludge of an eight month off-season. Racing reminds you why you slogged through all that training…and training…and training.

It is hard for me to not be there this weekend. I can picture it: warm and sunny on the water. Smiles in bloom as athletes see who else survived another long winter. Handshakes, hugs, and Pidgin English conveying rumors of who’s in good form. Lots of laughing.

Whatever it looks like on camera, everyone’s more relaxed at the World Cups. The game faces can wait to harden for the World Championships. This is just good racing fun. Results at World Cup count, but only as a chance to build up for the World Championships.

Here, now, everyone has fresh clean kit, a shiny new boat, and a whole season’s worth of possibility ahead. That leaves a lot of room for optimism and excitement. Reporters hover from a little further away and they don’t absolutely have to have a quote right now. Coaches can do their hand-ringing from home. Yep, the World Cups are all about the rowers and the racing - just the pure joy of the sport. I really wish I were in Amsterdam to start my season.

And what a start the World Cups are. The opening Heats are a blast. Literally. Top finishers get a free pass through the second round “Repechages.” That’s French for “you don’t want to be here because it’s a lot nicer in your air conditioned hotel room where you can be online watching your competition suffer.”

This makes the Heats a mass sprint off start followed by an extended bluff through 500 meters, 750 meters, 1,000 meters, 1250 meters…whatever it takes until enough boats fold and everyone can paddle slowly to the finish. Usually. If a Heat’s close too long, guys suddenly find that they’re already too far invested and they have to push all-in. That ends especially badly for someone who gets to do it again that afternoon with nothing saved in reserve. That hurts. In 2003 and 2004 Tucker and I won all our World Cup Heats and that led to some medals in the finals. It helps to win your Heat.

The five boats The U.S. sent to Amsterdam this year could win some Heats. We have new lineups in the light men’s and light women’s double sculls. I’m excited to see how they do in tight fields. The light men’s double has the added variable of trying to make the US “time standard” to secure a spot on the World Championships team. Our selection process in the U.S. is…let me say…complicated. Think of this situation with the light men’s double as a bonus variable, just like the Tour de France’s green and polka dotted jerseys, except, it’s a World Championships red, white, and blue unisuit. Yes…the bottom line is, if there’s a building tailwind on Friday, we might see them want to go to the “Reps” to have their best shot at hitting 6:27.99.

In the single scull, Jon Burns has always impressed me with his determination and consistent improvement. This will be a great chance for him to check his speed against a top field and see what he can learn.

The quadruple sculls event is all about momentum, and everyone’s curious how our new combination gets going. They’ll be without Sam Stitt, who might be our top team-boat sculler. He moved out of the quad into the open double this year. I wouldn’t want to be in his Heat tomorrow.

So, the Heats are Friday morning with Round Two “Reps” that afternoon. The Semi-Finals are Saturday morning with Finals on Sunday, LIVE on WCSN starting at 7:50 AM.

I feel the adrenaline, already. I’ll be watching, cheering, and training back here in Boston. Nine months now, and counting. I sure wish I were in Amsterdam.

Good luck to all who are.

Great,

Greg

Greg Ruckman won the “light double sculls” World Cup in Munich, 2003. He has won one World Championship and finished sixth and seventh in the Olympics. He hopes to win a medal in the “light four” at the 2008 Olympics.