Going for gold: the Olympic diary of rower James Chapman (Part IX)

With less than 30 days until kick-off in Beijing, preparations are starting to heat up; in every sense of the word.

We’ve been on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland for about a week, and as if being a Cockroach in the heart of Cane Toad territory when Queensland snuck home over NSW in the State of Origin decider last week wasn’t tough enough, training has involved long, draining sessions in “artificial” heat and humidity.

Even Queensland (which has actually been rainy one day, drizzling the next) can’t naturally produce the conditions we’re expecting to encounter in Beijing next month, so Richo and Ricey have been indulging in a bit of climate change.

This involves dressing in full lycra suits, with beanies and punching out 45-minute sessions on the ergs (rowing machines) while heaters warm the room to Beijing-like levels. They’re lung-busting workouts (that give you a very itchy head), but necessary as part of our aclimation plan.

I lost 3 kilograms during one of these sessions on Monday, so proper re-hydration and re-fuelling is crucial. We’re lucky to have a senior AIS sports dietitian with us in camp, Gary Slater, who co-ordinates our post-training recovery. This normally includes lots of bananas, protein shakes, re-hydration salts and other gastrolytes, and then plenty of sleep!

The best meal we’ve had in camp, though, was when we were kindly invited to have dinner at cox Marty Rabjohn’s parents house in Mooloolaba. Even though their son might not be able to cut loose at meal time, Di and Ian were well prepared for his larger crewmates with a fantastic BBQ; although not entirely Queensland-style as the XXXX wasn’t flowing freely.

On the water, we’re back rowing as a full eight now after a period of splitting into two 4s to work on some technical drills. We’re feeling pretty fast, and we’ve also been spending a bit of time focussing on our race strategy for Beijing.

This means the whole crew being totally in tune with Marty’s calls, and knowing at what point during the 2000 metres we’ll boost our stroke rating and stamp our authority on the race. A key part of this preparation is actually done on dry land when we perform visualisation and imagery exercises, often three times a week now.

The crew have thankfully remained healthy and just about injury-free while in Queensland, so there haven’t been many disruptions to combinations. Only Jeremy Stevenson has struggled with a bit of a virus, but perhaps that’s not too surprising – being a West Australian, he’s a long way from home!

The only other distraction is Pamela Anderson, who isn’t too far away on the Gold Coast. My room-mates, Sam Loch and Sam Conrad, are threatening to raid the Big Brother house when we get a rare day off at the end of the week.

The guys got a massive lift after three more Aussie boats qualified for Beijing at a regatta in Poland last month.

Pippa Savage won the women’s single scull, Catriona Sens and Sonia Mills finished second in the final of the double sculls, while the men’s four pulled off a great win after a last-minute crew change.

Matt Ryan woke up with a virus on the morning of the race, but Terrence Alfred stepped up and with Francis Hegerty, Cameron McKenzie-McHarg and James Marburg, bagged a memorable victory.

Australia has now qualified crews for Beijing in all 14 classes for the first time in Olympic rowing competition.

Only one other nation, Germany, has achieved the same feat, qualifying all of its 14 crews at Atlanta in 1996.

James has been selected in the Australian men’s eight for the Beijing Olympics. He will be producing a diary for The Roar in the lead-up to the start of the Games on August 8. You can receive emails of James’ column by signing up here.