Mahe's Mailbag- Henley Round 2 - Drunks abound

by Mahé Drysdale on 8 Jul 2007 Quarter Finals are all wrapped up! There was finally some sunshine and no rain at all which is the first dry day since being in Europe.

There are more and more drunks around as there are now less than 25% of crews that started the regatta left to race tomorrow and the rest are making the most of the festivities, getting dressed and enjoying the Pimms and Champagne on offer.

This weekend is one of the biggest weekends in the history of British sport with the Tour De France starting in London tomorrow, the final weekend of Wimbledon, the British Grand Prix and of course Henley. It hasn’t seemed to stop the crowds flocking up here with tomorrow being a sell out. Today we have enjoyed watching everyone stumbling away from the regatta to enjoy a night on the town.

As for the racing! The water is still flowing very quickly and the wind was still a very stiff side/head wind today making it another long race. All went well as I blasted out in front and after the first timing point was able to take the rating down to around 24 to row over the rest of the race and try to avoid being put onto the booms by the squalls of wind coming across the course. The rest of the results of the quarter finals went as expected which sets up a Campbell vs. the American Sculler Schroeder in one semi tomorrow while I will face Hacker in the other.

This is different from the normal 2K racing on a course as it is one on one and a longer race than usual. I am really looking forward to what Im expecting to be a battle to the end. 0.5 Seconds is the largest margin between the two of us in the last two regattas, so should be a tasty one and certainly one of the best quality Henley fields ever.

Will be back with a full report of how it goes tomorrow.

Mahe