World Cup I 2022
This one meant a lot. I will be sharing more in due course about why, but even just the fact that we made it should be celebrated! It wasn’t easy to get us all there - we almost didn’t have any competition, then the Aussies (the only other crew entered) had a bout of Covid, only saved by the legend Alex Wenyon, the coxswain trialling against me, who became an honorary Australian and coxed the team!
For me, getting there was huge as I have been in the team 5 years now, it is was my first world cup. For a number of reasons around allocation of races during selection, illness, injury and Covid, I hadn’t raced and it was brilliant to be there. It was also great to race with the Seniors, the first time since Europeans in 2021. Being part of a big team brings atmosphere and morale and it was incredible to see the whole of the GB Rowing Team do well.
The test race was… interesting. It was a new organising committee, which means you might expect some teething problems. For us, as the first race of the whole regatta, the teething problems was that they didn’t do the starting roll call correctly or turn on the sound system, so that the only way we knew the race had started was with the usual bleep and a change in the lights. No warnings, no times and no roll call… it was a miracle we got going ok and thankfully the Aussies were jump started too. We got through the race ok, somewhat disgruntled but mostly pleased with how we rowed.
The final was a different story - the weather seriously turned but we managed to stay dry for the most part. It was weird weather on the course though, a tailwind to start turning into a headwind towards the latter part of the course which wasn’t ideal!
The race was brilliant - great intent and good technical changes which stuck. We raced the full track at max intent and we were gutted to be 0.3 off the World Best Time which admittedly, in a headwind, is nothing to be too sad about. It was good to stand on the podium and share the moment with the team and one I won’t ever forget.
