Second Place

Margot finished second this morning in the Women's A Final. I'm sure she's disappointed that she didn't win, but also hope she is overall pleased with doing so consistently well in her single.

A/B Semi-Final Win

Two semi-finals this morning - Margot won hers. Semi-finals are two races with 6 contenders in each. The top three in each race compete tomorrow morning at 7:10.

Here's the write up from usrowing news.

2009 National Selection Regatta 1

"Thirty-one scullers have entered the women’s single sculls race, including six members of the 2008 Olympic Team. Potomac Boat Club’s Margot Shumway (Westlake, Ohio), who stroked the women’s quadruple sculls in Beijing, is coming off a victory in the spring speed order. Olympic double sculls partners Megan Kalmoe (St. Croix Falls, Wis.) and Ellen Tomek (Flushing, Mich.) are both scheduled to race, as is one of Shumway’s Olympic boatmates, Jennifer Kaido (West Leyden, N.Y.). USRowing TC’s Anna Goodale (Camden, Maine) won gold in the women’s eight in Beijing but will be sculling this weekend, as will California Rowing Club’s Brett Sickler (Los Gatos, Calif.), an Olympic alternate. USRowing TC’s Kathleen Bertko (Oakland, Calif.), who finished second behind Shumway at the speed order, is also scheduled to race."

Margot had two races today. Early this morning, the time trial. Margot came in fourth out of 32 contenders. Placing in the top 6 in the time trial means that you move on and have one of the two middle lanes in the heats.

The top 18 moved on to the first set of qualifying heats - 3 races with 6 people in each. 

So early this evening, Margot won her first qualifying heat. This means she will be competing in the A/B semi-final tomorrow. The top 12 move on to this semi-final. When she wins that one :)

she will move on to the A final on Sunday - the top 6 from the A/B final.

So, you start out with any number (in this case 32), winnow it down to 18, winnow it down to 12, and winnow it down to 6, and then the winner.

This is what the winner is driving towards:

"For the men’s and women’s single sculls, the regatta serves as the first step towards making the 2009 Senior National Team that will represent the United States at the 2009 FISA World Rowing Championships in Poznan, Poland. The winner of each event will earn the right to compete at a world cup race of their choosing. If the NSR #1 winner finishes in the top four (or top half if there are fewer than eight entries), then he or she will be nominated to the team. For the remaining boat categories, NSR #1 serves as an opportunity for athletes to test their speed early in the season in preparation for future selection regattas and trials."

Speed Order - What's It All About?

Speed orders are significant, but I wondered why? Also, I wondered if I could find an answer without having to ask Margot for a change. US Rowing does provide information about the selection process for world championships and I'm pretty sure this is the definitive guideline.

From what I gather after scanning this document, speed orders provide results that the national team coaches can use as additional criteria when they select their rowers for championship regattas. This reminds me of the dreaded Dodge Ball Selection Process in elementary school. You remember, I KNOW you do! The gym teacher would appoint two classmates to select the teams, and the rest of us would stand around, afraid to look at each other or them, afraid to seem too hopeful, trying to look both nonchalant and athletically powerful, and dreading the prospect of being one of the last two standing... 


The "selectors," savoring each delicious moment of tormenting their peers with the teacher's approval, evaluated us using a series of questions like this:

Who's the best at throwing the ball?

Who's the fastest?

Who's the strongest?

Who's the cutest?

Who's the most popular?

"Who won a speed order?" would be to rowing like adding: "Who won the last time we played?" to the list above. The similarity is a stretch because in elementary school, who's the cutest and most popular were probably at the top of the list depending on the selector, while in national team selection, the criteria is designed to eliminate such pre-teen subjectivity.

To sum up, a speed order provides coaches with additional statistics with which to evaluate athletes when it comes to choosing who will compete.

Corrections are welcome!

Margot and Kathleen Win the Double Sculls

Margot and Kathleen Bertko WON the Women's Double Sculls (two women each using two oars) in their final event this weekend at the Speed Order. Great news and congratulations to both of them!

It was a nice way to start out Saturday, reading the news online. Saturday continued to be a fun day of driving down to Columbus for Stephanie's wedding shower. I met many of her family members and friends and heard how wonderful they all think Tom is! I agree and also made sure I told them we felt the same way about Stephanie.

Spent the night there (Tom and I played "let me show you cool stuff on the computer, play music on iTunes, watch SNL skits on Hulu, and explore my Kindle2) and I left this morning after a quick Easter breakfast. Happy Easter to anyone reading this.

Margot Wins the Single - April 9 2009 US Rowing Spring Speed Order

Today was the first significant race for Margot since Beijing and, more importantly, her first resounding WIN in her single. After placing second in the qualifying heat, she won her first heat, and then WON the A Final. Tomorrow, she and the second place winner, Kathleen Bertko, will race the double. Margot thinks Kathleen is really fast and is looking forward to racing with her.

So, what is a speed order? In my never-ending quest to educate myself and Margot's friends and family who are similarly challenged in terms of rowing knowledge... here's what I've found. Hmm... basically nothing.

OK, here's what I think I understand... When you have a speed order, you have an initial heat where everyone rows in succession (like a head race) and the top whatever number (in this case, 18) qualify to continue to race. In this initial race, you are rowing to: 1) qualify to continue to row, 2) get a good position.

Good position is usually the middle of six lanes - 3 and 4. The outer lanes are generally less desirable because they are choppier or ickier in ways that only rowers could adequately explain.

So, the first race determines whether you continue and whether or not you have favorable position. The next race is the first "real" heat. If there are 18 people who qualify, the next race will be three races that determine who will be in the A (top two of each race), B (middle two of each race), or C (bottom two of each race). In this case, Margot won her heat, so was in the A final.

Finally, there is an A final - which Margot won, and a B and a C final. All of this determines, at this event, who will be paired up in a double (both people with two oars = W2X which Beijing Blog followers will already know, assuming they retain information longer than I do).


So, I'm waiting for pizza because I'm lazy and, rather than cooking after work, got a manicure because I will drive to Columbus tomorrow for Stephanie's wedding shower and the mother of the groom doesn't want to embarrass her future daughter-in-law's family and friends with scraggly nails. And I will be staying in touch with Mar's race thanks to my Blackberry (not while I'm driving!).

More than just a room in China

Our hotel room was in this building. There is a lobby and a coffee and beer bar on the first floor. There is also a tiny gift shop. Each time we entered the resort area, the cab would stop at the gate and wait for the policeman to come out, open the gate, and speak into a walkie talkie. So, when the cab pulled up at the front of this building, our little hostess, Rose, would appear as if by magic to see what we needed next. More about that in another post.

This is the recreation hall that housed a bowling alley, pool tables, ping pong, etc. Nathan went bowling there but the lack of air conditioning kept John and I away. If we had small children, I am sure they would have given this place a workout.

This is the bowling alley!

This is the building where we ate our meals. We were never allowed to eat in the large restaurant on the first floor. Instead, our hostess would usher us into the elevator and take us to a private dining room on the second floor.

And this is the spa. I wish we had pictures of the interior. The magnetic springs have healing properties, supposed to be good for arthritis. However, since Nathan found some algae-like slipperiness in one of the connecting pools, I didn't try it out. (Could have also been my lack of interest in parading my cellulite). The spa boasted locker rooms for men and women, saunas, floating pools, massages and manicures (neither of which were, for some reason, allowed during the Olympics -- when I asked Rose said "FORBIDDEN!" Maybe there is some security risk in taming foreigner's unruly cuticles.) There was also a teahouse on the second floor. This was a lovely quiet place where, if the fans were strategically placed, you could enjoy a cup of tea or even of coffee and relax amidst polished wood, gently bobbing wooden-bead curtains, under the gaze of a mahogany tea-drinking Buddha perched on an ornately carved table.