It is a mixture of surprise, excitement, as well as lessons learnt for FUN DB's participation in River Regatta this year. On the 1st day of the heats, both Team A and B came in with no expectations. Prior to that, we have already not been doing well in our training and not hitting certain 'performance criteria'. So we all came down with the only aim of doing our best effort. Coincidentally both Team A and B were in the same heats event; that means we are competing with each other.
And the surprise part came for the heats... Team A managed to came in 1st, clocking a timing about 1:41. I myself have also been suprised; we all thought that our rivals are stronger than us. I guess we might have undermine our abilities. But i guess luck might also have been on our side, taking into consideration the water and wind conditions. Team B came in 3rd position for the heats; even though there is no possibility for them qualifying into the semi, it is already a better rowing achievement as compared to last year.
The disappointment came on the 2nd day when Team A is rowing in the semi. Something unexpected happened, and i guess we learnt a lesson from this episode. We did not managed to level our boat in the same position with the rest. Therefore for our start, we were about 2 boat seats behind others. Despite this, we were still able to row confidently. Looking back at the video clip, i can see that we were rowing with good coordination, and we stayed calm throughout the 300 metres. Surprisingly too, we came in 2nd place in the semis clocking about 1:45 timing. We do however feel disappointed, as we can stand a good chance to come in first and qualify into the finals. If only we have been alert and attentive in the leveling up during the start, we definitely could have made it into the finals.
Nevertheless, it is an important lesson learnt this time, so that we can do better and improve for any race next time. To all my fellow team-mates, let's take this lesson well and come back again for the next time.
