U23 World Champs, Trakai

 I originally promised a much sooner update, but then I went to Bremen, Germany to visit my grandpa and the blog update was history. I am now back in Canada, and have had a little time here and there to think about U23's. To be perfectly honest, the fact that we are world champions still hasn't really hit me. When I think about the race, three things really stand out, they are: 1)  I remember thinking, in the back of my head, how dried out my mouth felt. I'll admit, kinda weird, but the memory really stands out. 2) I also remember that moment right after Susanne caught a mini crab. I could literally feel everyone behind me pulling with every ounce of their strength to make sure we cross that finish line first. The boat picked up speed like never before! 3) Finally, about 100-200m before the finish, I remember Christine yelling out that we were going to win. That was unreal!
All in all, I wish I could share more details and strategies, but it is hard to remember a race when you are so in the zone. One thing that I like to believe was key for us is that we didn't let the wind and bad weather get to us. We knew that if we saw the wind as an advantage and rowed cleaner than our opponents, that we would be one step ahead of the competition. In reality, I have no idea whether or not we managed to row cleaner than our opponents, but we believed. Just like we believed that we could win, and this made all the difference. Don't get me wrong! I was unbelievably nervous.... and of course there was that little bit of self doubt and worry, but deep down inside there was a part of me that believed we could cross that line first. I was once told, by a very wise person, that in order to win you have to truly believe you can, you have to be able to see it. That is what we did.
And now it's photo time!

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1. training day before the heats (Photo courtesy of Volker Nolte)

2. (sorry... cant fix the indent) here we are racing in the heat against Australia. They made us work for it, but we managed to pull ahead in the last 250.

3. Here we just crossed the finish line after winning our final





4. Standing on the podium. Hearing the Canadian National anthem play as they raised the Canadian flag was the most amazing feeling!