Saturday racing

Today was by far the most exciting day of the tour yet.

The first race that our girls competed in was the junior varsity Quad. A very prestigious race which had some very talented and experienced crews in it and our girls did very well to come 4th.  They had a great start and did well to hold off another crew that was coming home very strong, in this race was (Yvette, Jana, Freya, Annabelle and Julia). Just a few races after this the school 8 race was on. This was by far one of the most exciting races I have seen from a Pymble crew. Both Mark C and I went out on a officials boat and videoed the whole race from the starting pontoon to the finish we got some spectacular photos and footage. What was more amazing was at the start line we had a good chance to look at all the other crews. Mark and I commented that our girls did look like there were in the wrong race, some of the members of these crews were the size of open university women crews and looked to have a big size and weight advantage. They looked like the younger sisters of the girls from the other crews. Three members of a Seattle crew were 6 feet tall or higher. At the gun the girls were immediately left behind as the bigger crews edged off first, however as our girls found there rate they left the field for dead. At the 250m mark they were half a boat length ahead and increased that to about a boat length by the end of the race.
The girls were delighted and were presented there medals by a 2008 Canadian Olympic rowing Gold medalist. The rest of the day the girls were on a high and were introduced to all different crews to be invited down to row with them in Seattle. To their credit the girls have been outstanding ambassadors of Pymble, with immaculate manners and very bright and bubbly personalities it has been a pleasure to receive such good praise at my end.
Unfortunately in the afternoon the races got cancelled due to high winds, so the 4's and Doubles's as well as the Junior varsity 8 have been postponed till tomorrow. The girls are bubbling with energy and are having an absolute ball.

Best wishes,
Tom

P.S. if you haven't already please check the Brentwood website album, there is a great photo of our girls.