Chocolate-box campus
Christopher Dodd finds himself at Mercer Lake, New Jersey.
Leaving Newark airport on interstate 95 south, it is easy to understand why Princeton is a popular place for American rowers, and why Mike Teti, the US men's coach, bases his eight there. We rumble past the New York Times printing plant, Dow Jones, and mini-campus after campus of the big names in technology, enterprise and finance. Cruising through a top jobs mart, and it's only a few miles to Manhattan, Philadelphia and a stream of business and government centres strung along the east coast.
And then there's Princeton itself, a chocolate box college town of old stone archways, quadrangles, avenues and big ideas. And there's Carnegie Lake and the university's boathouse, a boathouse to end all boathouses in both facilities and elegance.
Mercer Lake is a few miles away, two kilometres of water in a huge park bordered by trees in the bright, light hopeful verdants of spring. Electricity pylons are etched on the skyline at the start end, and a white tented town has miraculously appeared opposite the huge schools boathouse to accommodate the first Zurich Rowing World Cup regatta ever held in America.
This is where Britain's new dream team, launched by a slip of the tongue at last week's press conference when David Tanner, the international rowing manager, addressed the two champions from the Olympic four sitting beside him as "Steve and Matt", begin their attempt to go four unbeaten years in a coxless pair. James Cracknell and Matthew Pinsent, for it is they, line up in Crackers's first ever international race in a pair and his first race on bow side for 12 years, against crews from Croatia, Canada, Russia, Australia (if they show) and Russia.
"I think this has got the capability to be quicker than Steve and I ever were," Pinsent says. Considering that water to row on has been in short supply since the Olympics, and with Cracknell changing from stroke to bow side, Pinsent says they have progressed far quicker than he and Redgrave did when they first got together. Particularly at camps in Seville, Spain, and Varese, Italy, where improvement was felt from day to day.
Complacent, however, they are not. The wind has been cross, up, down, round and back again for practise on Mercer Lake, and the Croatian pair of Igor Francetic and Kresimir Culjak are from the Olympic eight. Heats are on Friday and finals on Saturday.
The rest of the British team in this thinly attended regatta are Matthew Wells in the single and a new light four of Mike Hennessy, Steve Lee, Matthew Beechey and John Warnock. The four have a straight final, while Wells's event has some big guns, including Olympic 1996 champion and 2000 silver medallist Xeno Mueller, and the Egyptian Aly Ibrahim.
Aquil Abdullah, last year's Diamond's winner, is also trying his hand, as well as lightweight Steve Tucker of the US, Norwegian Olaf Tufte, and Canadian Todd Hallet.
Wells, ninth in Sydney, is enjoying himself, hoping that he can turn in another year of remarkable achievement from his UL base without the injury that dogged him last time. But the wind could be a problem. Is it the same for everyone, I asked him. "I think this could be a bit of an unfair course. It's up and down all the time," he replied.
More tomorrow!
Chris Dodd will be filing reports on Friday and Saturday's FISA events to the Rowing Service.