Paul Rosenquist

Saturday 11th 13:00

Ok, yesterday .I was allready hungry on the airport in Frankfurt, and the lunch there sort of just fell into a big void. I thought, ok, we’ll probably have bite of something before we get to the rowing club. Not…it took so long with luggage, and the crazy traffic to get to Turin that we had to hurry to get some rowing done that eavening. A boat luckily was waiting for me there. I just did some basic measures and screwed it together. By the time I was going out on to the river it was pitch black. A new boat, darkness, a new river, masses of rowers everywhere, and oon top of every thing, totally screwed up pitch settings on my oars. It was a really fun row I had, the lights of the city and the greatly illuminated bridges were making it more like a sight seeing tour. Anyway after a few km’s the lights faded and I looked behind me into pitch darkness.Ok, lets turn back.

It turned out to be 21:00 when we got fed….and how. We were told to be in the lobby of the hotel at 20:00. The coach of Ekatrin’s (olympic chamopion womens single) coach has got this huge buss that he thought could carry all of us. I ended upp being shoved into the back of a van toghether with, Juri Jaanson (silver medal in Athens in the single) , Olav,Lassi, Mahe, Mathias ( a german lightweight medailist from the worlds in 04) all their coaches and me. It was realy funny in a way. We had the most amazing dinner. Mahe is a real clown and managed to actually get both himself, Olaf and some of the others really drunk on the grappa. They all agreed that if everybody there would just drink, it would not change anything for the race. It was just the dutch guy missing. Olav was really babbling a lot and was shouting across the table that poor Juri Jaanson was an old fart and is crazy that he is still rowing (40 yrs old), Juri just smiled. He is a really nice guy. He said in his Estonian English ‘ I hope I get fitter than you soon , and young guys want to row bigger boat with me’. NO, No….Olav shouted. fitter than me…not possible. The stupid thing is that he i probably pretty damn right about that. (and he knows it) Any way Mahe just kept pouring the drinks and Lassi and I were dodging them and trying to avoid to drink anything. These are tough guys. Mahe told me a lot about his training regime in back in England where he camps out during the winter. 35km rows in the morning every other day…he lives at the rowing club. A long distance race every weekend. This guy is on top of things I felt. He is best in the world and having a lot of fun being it.
The Empacher guys who sponsored the whole thing were really drunkish by now and started getting emotional of how special it is to have so many of the greatest rowers around one table etc. He was right. We than were invited to one of the rowing clubs to meet their president. We strawled over there and the clubhouse was actually rented out to somebody celebrating a sweet 16 birthday party. So the guys ended up standing there dancing with 15 year olds. The club was this really poshy place and the atmosphere was just great. Italians just dont do big effort to hide the snobbishness. Anyway after an hour there I managed to get away and walked home togheter with Lassi’s coach. Lassi went on with those other guys pretending he was drunk.

This morning I had a long row, and checked out the course. I lot of turns, current, bridges and other obstacles. But really scenic and good water. The rowing felt ok, and I managed to get the setting inthe boat reasonable. I did som intervals and felt a bit how it is to row the coarse in race pace. After a 6minute piece I was about dead. How will this go tomorrow? The race should take about 45 minutes or so….Just focus on a nice rythm and keep the rowing lite and smooth. I just want to execute a smooth race, than the result will be what I deserve and that should be ok.

An other row this afternoon and than an early night I hope!

More later!