In the first race we came first, in my opinion lucky. The start was slow and the boat didn't lift off the water. By the time we hit the mid section of the race, we had made some real progress on the dutch dragons and were ahead by the end of the mid section. When we finally hit the last leg of the race, the team started to panic and started to increase the stroke rate without reaching longer. Everyone in the boat was doing doggy style paddling, short stroke without power. The dutch dragons and us are neck and neck but we just pimped them by 0.12 of a second.
It is clear from the first race that the dutch dragons strategy is to have an strong start, have an easier paddle during the mid section of the race and go home strong. What they failed to do in the first race is go home strong.
The semi finals and our second race we did much better. Didn't have the panic state because we were racing against the slower teams. The home stretch of the race was long and powerful and it felt we were actually contributing to the speed of the boat with each stroke, excellent!
The grand finals and we are up against the dutch dragons again. The start was the same, the mid section of the race was the same, but what changed is the finish. The dutch dragons pulled together and found a way to correct their mistake of the first race and put on and incredibly strong finish, leaving us to bit the dust.
The concrete dragons must overcome a different kind of stroke for the end of the race.
If the organizers of the NDBF are reading this, make the races more frequent, stop having 1 hour breaks between each race!
No comments:
Post a Comment