The Famous Universities International Regatta

August 7, 2010:  As we woke up this morning, only one thing was on everyone's mind...victory.  The crew was all rested and ready to compete and show off some American muscle in this race.  We arrived at the course around 8:30 a.m. to prepare for the opening ceremonies.  There was a procession of all of the participating crews rowing in front of the grand stands for all of the spectators to see.  It was very elegant.  After the crews completed their fly by in front of the spectators, the real opening ceremonies began.  There were fireworks, water skiers going off of a ramp that was set up in lane 4, parachuters with industrial sized fans attached to them, and the release of hundreds of pigeons into the air.  When the opening celebration finally ended, the racing could begin.  We took the victory in the heat just as we did in Shunyi, but this time the Chinese crew was putting some more effort in for their home crowd.  The stage was perfectly set for the final.  We were in lane 3 and Tsinghua University was in lane 4.  There was no doubt in anyone's mind that we were going to win the final.  The race went off and the Chinese jumped out to a length lead on the start, but that was all they had.  Once they shifted to their base rhythm, here came the Tigers.  We quickly cut the lead from one length to 4 seats in 100 meters.  At the 600 mark, Raja Goel '12 made the call to get the seats back and end the race early.  The Tigers took off and were taking a seat a stroke, blowing through the Chinese.  Midway through the move when we were clearing Tsinghua, six seat Jack Lindeman's '11 oar handle snapped in half.  The carbon fiber exploded, leaving Jack to row inside arm only for the remaining 1200 meters of the race.  Unfortunately there is nothing that we could protest because the breakage was not early enough in the race, but all of the spectators, officials, and coaches knew the fact that we were going to win.  The officials believed that so much that they have already extended an invitation to us to come back next year because they know we will be the champions.  After we packed the boat up and loaded it on the trailer, it was time to go back to the hotel and get ready for the farewell dinner.  This event was much more formal than our last affair.  Both the entertainment, service, and cuisine were greatly improved and great time was had by all.  Tomorrow we fly out of Chengdu and back to Beijing for the evening.  Hopefully the travel from Chengdu to Beijing will be easier on the return trip than it was the first time.  Until then, Tigers, out.