FINAL RACE IN RACICE

Hello everyone, sorry that I haven't written in a while, I was trying to stay focused for my races and weight and wasn't able to easily find a computer. I hope you enjoy this post because it will be my last one from Europe. Now on to the good stuff -

So we finished 9th of 13th in the lightweight men's quad. We got 3rd in the B final behind Denmark and Sweden. We beat out Turkey, Czech Republic, and Spain. It was extremely competitive racing and our starts were never that good, which makes all the difference at this level of racing. We were always the slowest boat off the starting line. The real nail-biter was our semi-final race where the top 3 boats went on to the A final on Saturday. We got off the line slow because our boat was pointed directly at the buoy line in order to compensate for the cross tailwind. This would have helped compensate for the increase in wind speed but because the announcer started us sooner than we would have liked, we hit the buoys with our oars. After straightening out the boat and cranking up the rating, we were able to push our way into fighting position. France was in third and our goal was to overtake them in order to make the A final. We were able to pull up even with them, then with about 500 meters to go, they made a push and held us off. An incredible race to watch and quite a frustrating one for us after that slow start. We came into our final race on Sunday hoping for a win, but again we had a rocky start and Sweden and Denmark got up on us, and even though we were able to walk back even with those two boats, they were able to hold us off with about 300 meters to go.

Personally, racing in the U23 World Championships has been an incredibly eye-opening and very productive learning experience. I've raced and watched some of the best rowers my age from around the world, which reminds me, I would like to make a shout-out to the women's lightweight quad who trained with us all summer at GMS and congratulate them on their silver medal and one incredible performance. Victoria, Katherine, Summers, and Devery - awesome job and I'm expecting to hear a lot more about your accomplishments in the future. The USA women's 8+ and men's 4- (four without coxswain) both captured silver medals in their respective events.

After racing, a lot of crews traded some of their countries' gear with one another. I was able to pick up an entire French warm-up suit (pants and jacket) and t-shirt, as well as a Dutch shirt, and Great Britain and Australian polo. Mike Nucci, however, got the one item I sought after, the Italian racing vest - truly a popular and much coveted piece of gear.

So that's it from me. I plan to take August pretty lightly in terms of training and work and plan on using that time to relax in order to prepare for the much anticipated senior year at Columbia. I'm stoked to get back and see my teammates, but mostly, I'm excited to start training in anticipation of making senior USA team for the World Championships in New Zealand next fall. It's been an awesome time with my boat mates Pete, Will, and Mike, and I really enjoyed my time under our coach, G-man (Guenter Beutter). I would like to thank all those who supported us, especially family, friends, and fans - without you guys we wouldn't have accomplished all that we did. If you didn't check out our fundraising site here it is:

http://www.firstgiving.com/guenterbeutter1

Thanks again to everyone. Go team USA and go Lions!