| Australia’s top Olympic gold medal contenders in rowing are leaving nothing to chance when they compete next year at the Beijing Olympic Games. Drew Ginn and Duncan Free will soon be taking the long flight from Australia to China to try and gain insight into the Olympic rowing venue and get a feel for the potential weather conditions.
Ginn and Free are back to back World Champions in the men’s pair and the duo, with their previous Olympic competition knowledge, are aware that there is no room for error when it comes to racing for Olympic gold.
| Free and Ginn celebrate their win at the Munich World Champs
| |
Both Ginn and Free raced at the Athens Olympics – Ginn in the pair and Free in the quad. But the weather conditions will be quite different from 2004 and the duo want to know what to expect. Beijing is likely to have higher humidity although temperatures may not be quite as high as in Athens. FISA medical commission member, Dr. Juergen Steinacker notes that humidity impairs the transport of heat outside the body.
“Only 20 per cent of the energy produced (by the body) is used for mechanics. All the rest has to be unloaded. An example is if you use 600 watts of effort, then 2400 watts of heat that have to be got rid off, quite a radiator! And humidity increases the problem,” says Steinacker.
Ginn and Free plan to train in heat chambers in their lead up to Beijing to help prepare their bodies and also head to training camps in northern Australia where the temperatures are hotter.
Racing at the Beijing Olympics will be in the afternoon to make the most of fair wind conditions at the Shunyi Rowing – Canoeing Park and Ginn and Free also want to experience racing at this time of day.
The Australians will not be the only ones testing out Beijing. Earlier this year Britain’s best rowers, including the women’s quad and the men’s four, traveled to Beijing. Top men’s single sculler, New Zealand’s Mahe Drysdale has also already made the trip to Beijing. Drysdale checked out the Olympic rowing course after the recent World Rowing Championships in Munich where he won gold for the third consecutive year.
The World Rowing team values feedback. |
| Text size 
