Barn Burner...

... actually that may have taken out the entire farm as well. Not to spoil the surprise, but when the dust settled we found ourselves in 4th place in the semi. Not a bad result by any means- just not the one we were looking for. It's alright though, we put it out there, took the race stroke by stroke, and attacked at every opportunity we could. When you finish a race 2.85 seconds off of the Olympic Champions, you can only be so disappointed. The 1.1 second spread we had off of the Dutch could almost be considered misleading, it doesn't do justice to how close the race actually was.

Through the race we did a good job of staying internal, racing our own race, and letting people respond to us. Similar to the rep, we were out of qualifying position, just barely, going through the first 1000 meters, but we were able to get into 3rd place with 500m to go. At this point you really don't have any option other than to go for the line, as hard as you can, and while we put everything we had left into the sprint, we simply didn't have the kick that the Danish and Dutch had. Times are difficult to compare, especially today as the wind was inconsistent in both strength and direction, but our time would have won us the other semi.

That's life though, we raced the semi that we had, and did everything we could to make it to the A-final. History was against us; the last US LM4- to make the final was 2000. Now we must turn our attention to the B-final, and fight our way to the highest placing we can. Every race here has been an improvement and so we still have the opportunity to be one of the highest placing fours of the past decade. It's something that I'd like to do, and it would be a good way to start our four year push to London.