Day Two - 2K
beautiful weather - sunny and hot - slight tail wind.
We've never raced the 2K at worlds before. The way they run it here it actually ends up being about 2300m. You line up and the 200m and start about 20 seconds apart. It's not precise though and they're not picky about whether you're at a complete standstill on the line. We were the 6th to start out of 7 and as we approached the line, Gavin waved us over and said we were riding bow heavy. He moved a few people around to level things out a bit.
So much of this race relies on the steersperson and we've got the best! We blasted out on the start, heard the back eight called in and took the first turn. Back eight were called again and we came out hard. We didn't quite catch up to Taipei but we were reeling them in along with Macau who started ahead of them. The back eight were just being called up, "HARD OUT" as we rounded the third turn and we were gearing up to pass those two when something happened. We missed the buoy and came through on the inside. As my paddle hit the lane marker that should have been on Eve's side of the boat, I tried to remember if it was a 5 or 10 second penalty. I was just wondering if this was some crazy strategy Gavin had to overcome the other crews in the straight when the drummer, Gina, said "it's okay, she slipped." I couldn't believe it because the boat never went out of control - how could she recover so quickly...in a corner? Clem's my hero! We picked up speed through the next 500m catching Taipei as the back eight were called up and we came out of the final turn HARD. Their cox steered in on us (not sure if it was intentional) but since the last leg can be finished in any lane we just moved over and barreled past. We reeled in Macau on the final 500m catching them at the finish line. Their men were congratulating them on winning - they had seen Laura slip and thought the penalty would be enough to put them ahead of us. The thing about the 2K is - because of the timing, you never know the results. The judges have to do all of the calculations before anything is for sure.
Missing the buoy was a 5 second penalty and everyone on Team Canada was saying they had timed us as roughly 3-5 seconds ahead. The mood was pretty tense and we all felt for Laura who was taking full responsibility unnecessarily. We don't really have a team cheer but just before we head into the marshaling area, we put our hands center and yell "TOGETHER". Important to remember at a time like this.
We hung around for a bit but the medal ceremony was behind schedule and they were still doing races from earlier in the day. It was dark when the bus arrived to take us home and we decided to wait to hear results back at the hotel. Gavin had a whole, "Shake it off, tomorrow's another day" speech ready for the bus ride but a few of the girls were missing. We were just doing a head count when we heard girls screaming and Karenwas running around the outside of the bus banging on the windows screaming, "We won! 11 seconds!!! We kicked their f***ing asses."
Kaylynne had the video camera going which is good because the next few minutes were a crazy jumble as we tried to find out how they knew, were they sure it was the women's results and not the men's? Where had they heard it? Was it posted? Pretty emotional for everyone and a few tears of relief. It was a pretty happy ride home. Gavin had to rewrite his speech, lots of dedications from the iPOD especially "I Will Survive" for the back eight.
We have a wicked team!