Champions du monde!

Thats what my medal says on the back!  We won the whole shebang, and now I can call myself an Under-23 world champion.  I'm back in California now, after more than 24 hours of travelling.  I went to bed at 1 am PDT completely exhausted, and woke up at around 5 am wide awake.  Woo jet lag!

People might think this is strange, but winning was surprisingly easy.  We came off the line about even with Canada, and a couple of seats down on Poland.  I worried for about 100m, until I heard our coxswain Dan say we were in the lead about 500m into the race.  We all knew we had the best base speed of any boat on the water, so from that point on we knew the race was in hand unless somebody caught a crab or messed up.   After a big push across the 1000m mark, we got an open water lead, and we knew the race was over even if somebody did mess up.  From that point on, it was a matter of cruising through the line.  We did a light sprint, rating about a 39, but I think at that point we were more interested in "not messing up" than in running up the margin.  Supposedly in the last 100m of the race, a couple of the guys in our boat were busy staring at the Jumbo-tron of us crossing the line.  I dont want to point any fingers, but it gives an indication of how not-close the race was.  The final margin was almost 4 seconds between us and Canada, who came in second. I dont want to give the impression that winning was painless or a walk in the park;  rowing is never easy.  However, it was by no means the hardest race I have ever rowed, and the next day my body was hurting more from the after-party celebrations than from the race itself.

As soon as we crossed the line, everything went a little crazy.  We yelled til our voices were horse, filled our boat about 3 inches deep with water from splashing, and embraced in some man-hugs.  Within a minute of crossing the line, we heard the National anthem being played for the US Women's 8+, who won also!  We cheered for them, and then paddled to the medals dock in front of the grandstand to receive our wares.  This was the first big-time race I have ever won, so it was a new experience to celebrate as such.

I wrote about patriotism earlier in this blog, and although my conflicted sentiments about it remain, I was truly proud to be an American during our medal ceremony.  I felt surprisingly emotional during the National anthem, as the American flag was raised.  I think so often patriotism is portrayed as a love of grandiose ideals.  I think it should be more about love of home. I love California, my family and friends, my hometown, my college, my parents house, and it was a joy to represent these things.

I was suprised at how many of the people in the Grandstand stuck around for the medal ceremony and for the closing ceremony of the race, which was mostly in French and German. Especially when the winners are a bunch of obnoxious, exuberant American college kids. I think in the US people would start a mass exit after watching the last boats cross the finish line.  Even so, by the time we got our medals, paddled back to the athlete dock, took our boat out of the water and started to derig, the racecourse was beginning to look deserted.  Even the gear-trading pit, an annual tradition, was paltry.  The trading of gear between athletes is a really fun cultural phenomenon to witness.  Our boat was near "the pit", and as we derigged, I probably had 15 people ask in broken english "you switch?" while holding up their german, turkish, italian, dutch, australian, Great Britain, or french uniforms.  I did manage to swap uni's with a guy from the Australian quad, and swap t-shirts with a German lightweight.  good stuff.

From the racecourse we went out to dinner with all of the Americans.  This was somewhat frustrating because by the time we got there, all of the reserved seats at the restaurant had been taken by people who had raced earlier in the day, and by the entourage of parents and friends.  Tensions began to rise until someone had the wise idea to buy a round of beer for everyone.  Spirits quickly improved.  Somehow everyone was accommodated, fed, and filled with drink, and there was much rejoicing.  yay.

We got back to the hotel and then went out to a couple of clubs.  Lots of rowers, lots of dancing, lots of drinking, lots of fun.  Needless to say, my boat was a total disaster (in a good, Kevin Baum sense of the word), and somehow we all got separated.  I ended up taking a taxi home, and was woken up at 5am to probably the worst hangover of my life.  Thank God for the James twins. I think everyone in my boat would have missed the flight if not for them.  30-something hours later and I am home in one piece in California.  As my third plane flight of the "day" pulled into the Bay Area, I was filled with a giddy sense of excitement to be in Northern California again. It feels really good to be home.

So far this has been a remarkable summer.  I am incredibly fortunate to have the experiences I have had. hooray!  In the coming weeks I will definitely post some blogs, although they will be less frequent because my pace of life will slow down.  I will be going to middle-of-nowhere, Nevada, in a week for Geology, which should be interesting. Its supposed to be over 100 degrees fahrenheit most days! woohoo! Thanks so much to everyone for your comments and emails and wellwishes. Its really nice to know people are following my rowing this summer.  I would love to hear updates from you if you get a chance.