Traveling to New Zealand and the First Week

It took us exactly 24 hours from the time we left the Olympic training center in Chula Vista, CA, on Thursday at 4:30pm to the time we got to the Kingsgate Hotel in Hamilton, New Zealand. First we took a bus from Chula Vista to LAX, there we waited a few hours for our flight to New Zealand. After a 13 and a half hour flight, where I watched 2 movies and slept for 6 hours on an emergency exit row, we got to Auckland, NZ. After going through customs (and making sure we were not bringing any fruit because it was a $400 fine on the spot if you were caught with anything like that) we got on to another bus to travel for 2 hours to Hamilton. After loosing a day for the time change we got here on Saturday at 12:30pm.

So far we’ve been very lucky with the weather. It’s been sunny and the wind hasn’t been blowing much. The venue and scenery is beautiful and there is plenty of room to row. We can row about 7k in one direction, then turn back towards the course, and the last 2k on the way back is the actual race course. The coaches can’t coach us on the water because there isn’t a bike path and they can’t follow us in motor boats. Instead they take video of us and we meet after to discuss it.

We’ve been here for less than a week but it already feels like we’ve been here for longer. We’ve done some good training and are ready to race. Our race in the M4- starts this Sunday: 2 heats, winner goes straight to the A final on Sunday. Everyone else goes to the repechage on Wednesday for the remaining 4 spots. It’s going to be a tough regatta but this is what we train for.

Hope the weather holds up, and if not, we don’t mind some wind and rain.

- Guiseppe Lanzone, USA 2010 M4-

This entry was posted on Friday, October 29th, 2010 at 8:40 pm. It is filed under Rowers, TEAM USA, World Championships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.