First hand account from the Donald sisters

Via Penn Athletics, here is a wonderfully written first hand account of their bronze medal winning race at the U23 world rowing championships, by Liz and Rebecca Donald.

We won BRONZE at U23 Worlds!
One of our teammates was able to videotape the race so we will send the link as soon as that gets up on YouTube. We thought many of you would be interested to hear the details of the race so here you go."Five minutes to the start" announced the starting official. Hungary, Romania, Belarus, Germany, and Italy were all locked into the starting platform; we were just backing in.

In the heat, our coach had suggested that we take a practice start at ¾ pressure once we were positioned in our lane prior to the actual start of our race. This practice start served as a good way to feel the conditions at the starting blocks; it also allowed us to get the blood flowing again since we had been waiting for the races before ours to get started.

At the final this morning, Rebecca asked me if I wanted to do a start. I instantly remembered a practice on Lake Hosmer, Vermont in which we had, as an entire group, set a start time for a race, but for one reason or another, Coach Gluckman was late to the start. All the crews had just waited, no longer warming up. As a result we had let our bodies cool down; we were no longer ready. Coach explained how poor that was to not have kept warming up as we would not be as prepared for the pieces. Remembering this practice as we locked into the starting platform, I quickly said, "Yes, let's do it." I told the stake boatholder (who was Belarusian): "We are going to go." I think he thought we were going to start the race early! We did a quick and light start five, glided the boat out and calmly backed the boat back into the starting platform where we had been moments ago.

"Two minutes to the start." We were ready and we were calm. Due to the very strong crosswind, we knew the course would have some swells and that it would be imperative that we stay relaxed and just keep it simple.

"Italy. Germany. United States of America. Belarus. Romania. Hungary. Attention..." We were off! We had a very clean start, and 250 meters into the race we had lengthened to our base rate of a 35/36. 500 meters into the race, Belarus and Germany were already pulling away from us as we moved away from Romania and the rest of the field. Our goal for this race was to get down the course as fast as possible and just try to put together the fastest race we could. We wanted to PR. Rowing through the first 750 meters, we were both internal and we were just focusing on our race, our strokes. Taking a ten-stroke move at the 750 and a 15 again at the 1,000 meter mark, we pushed away from Romania as we could no longer see or feel Germany and Belarus to either side of us. At the 1,000 mark, I thought of my brother Peter, who I knew would be up listening.

The wind bobbled us in the third 500 and we did not stay as relaxed as we needed to. We could no longer see Romania in our peripheral vision as they had gained ground on us. We did not look out of the boat but knew based on how little of them we could see that we needed to go.

500 meters to go. We could hear all the fans who packed the grandstands; we could hear the chant of "U-S-A!" As we pressed our legs down each stroke, we knew we needed to sprint. The yellow lane buoys turned from yellow to red. We were in the last 250 meters of our race and we were already sprinting. I didn't look down at my stroke watch to see what our rating was but only after the race learned we were at a 41. We pushed hard and fast as we sprinted to the finish line. Rebecca called "TEN!" Was it the last ten strokes or the beginning ten strokes? We both don't remember, but we just went. All we knew was that all the hard work; the many, many 500-meter pieces; the 250 meter pieces; the 40 at a 40 (40 strokes at 40 strokes per minute); and all our sprint work we had done in practice had prepared us for this moment. We needed to edge ourselves out in front of the Romanians. We needed to push harder, faster.

The horn signaling the finish line only sounded once. The race was too close to call. We immediately dropped our blades to the water as we stared at the screen waiting for the results.

Germany, 7:03.47, Gold. Belarus, 7:08.28, Silver. Silence, the results were delayed. United States, 7:20.46, bronze! Romania, 7:20.56. It took me a second to realize that the word "United" stood for the beginning of the team I was now representing. I stared at the board, and in an instant my hand flew to the air. WE DID IT! We edged out Romania by .10 of a second. An amazing margin.

We had practiced our sprint so many times at Craftsbury. 1,500m, 1,000, 500s, 250s, minute pieces, and two minute pieces; training and racing a lightweight men's single, a heavyweight men's single, a men's pair and a men's double, our training partners this summer helped us win this race.

Although we did not achieve a PR, we were both very happy with the final result. It is incredible to think that we managed to push our bow ball ahead and win by such a slight margin.

We finished third and the women's quad finished fourth, a huge improvement for the United States women's sculling team as both events finished last in the 2009 U23 World Championships.

Take care! Liz and Rebecca