On the Way

Margot left for the National Selection Regatta in San Diego today. This trip is the culmination of four years of her continuing commitment to earn a gold medal at the Olympics. After my last post, she won the gold medal in her single at the Pan Am games in Mexico. What a thrill! I spent hours on the Internet collecting photos and links and will add a few here.

Meanwhile, although the US women (and men) competed very well internationally at Lucerne last fall, we had a few boats that didn't qualify for the Olympics. I had to explain this to John and totally confused him, so will try to do a better job in writing. In order for a boat to compete in the Olympics, it has to place high enough at the World Championships the previous year. So, for instance, the Women's Eight might need to place within the top 10 of the boats who compete at Worlds. (Our Women's Eight came in first, awesome!). If that boat came in 11th or further down, the boat itself would not qualify for the Olympics. (BTW, I am not sure that 10 is the correct number, this is just an example.)

So, our Women's Single and our Women's Double (sculls, two oars for each person... remember the Pair is sweep rowing, one oar per person -- for those of you who have been following my deranged rowing explanations previously) did not qualify.

So, this upcoming selection regatta is for the boats that did not qualify. Why, you might ask? Turns out there is one last chance for all the boats (around the world) that did not qualify. There will be a world competition in Belgrade in May. During that time, the winners of our US regatta will compete with other countries to earn the remaining spots.

It might help to use Margot as an example (then again it might not, and you might scroll down to some of the other posts and just look at pictures until I post something vaguely comprehensible).

Margot will be competing in the Women's Double with Sarah Trowbridge. When they win the selection regatta, they will go to Belgrade and compete. If they come in first or second, they will qualify the boat and be able to participate in London.

Other boats that have qualified, for instance the Women's Eight, are still in the process of selection for who will be in the boat. So in some cases the boat qualifies, but the people will be determined in the next couple of months. So, there is a huge amount of excitement, stress, and terrifically hard work going on for all athletes in all the sports.

In about an hour, Mar will arrive in SD. She traveled with Sarah and with their coach Matt Madigan. If you are a previous follower, you may recognize Matt's name (and Sarah's). Matt coached Margot in the quad in Beijing, and has been her coach and a steadfast friend and supporter when she has been in DC. More personal stuff later. I just wanted to get this started and believe me and Alec Baldwin, it's tough to take a break from online Scrabble games.