Archives for September 2011

Losing.

I could have written a blog last year entitled "winning". This year, sadly, it is the opposite. I'm not going to sit and whinge about this being the worst result for my boat - the women's quadruple scull - since so and so, or my worst result since such and such.
This is not a list of statistics or a reeling off of clichés: this is a description of what it is like to lose, and how you deal with it.

The times and the race reports are available elsewhere - in essence, at this World Championships in Bled, Slovenia, we came third in a close race in our heat and thus had to race a repechage to attempt to reach the final. Again in the rep we came third in a close race and ended up having to contest the B-final for positions seven to 12 overall, with only one slot available to qualify a boat for the Olympics next year.

So in the space of five days we went from having high hopes of defending the world title we won in New Zealand last year, to having to scrap to gain the last Olympic qualifying spot and then to sit on the river bank to watch the Germans cross the line first in the A final, whooping and cheering.

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