proud of team mates

Well where to begin...As most of you know by now we didn't make the A Final. To be honest, this option wasn't even in my fore thoughts. I really thought we could pull it off. However, I'm extremely proud of us for handling everything the way we did. We had some bad luck this season, and we tried to recover but we just weren't fast enough. Anna Marie had a broken rib for 2 months, and she didn't start training full time with us again until July 16th. We left for Beijing on July 29th, and were not able to get our speed back in time.

On a positive note, we have an amazing coach. Canada hired Carsten Hassing just 2 years ago from Denmark. When he first came to Canada for the position, he was told he had just 4 rowers with any potential. He ended up making 15 Olympians by qualifying 3 boats (pair, quad, and eight + coxswain). Canada hasn't had a quad qualify for the Olympics in 12 years, and he created a sculling program in just two. I'm so excited to see what he can do when he has the whole next quadrennial to work with us.

I'm also super excited for the rest of the Canadian rowing team. Our men's eight is the favourite to win gold, and our men's pair and women's eight are also likely to get a medal. Canada is in desperate need of some hardware, so hopefully our rowers can pull through. I'll be cheering very loudly in the stands on Sunday. Utlimately I would have rather been racing too, but supporting my team mates is the next best thing.