"I race this weekend," was all I heard. Marsha heard, "I race on Bailey's birthday." we weren't sure what that meant. I'm usually on the ball better. I know all the ins and outs of finding Benn's race dates and times no matter what country he's in. I even the websites where results and live feeds can be found. I've followed results in Slovenian language before when all I could read was the names. This time I missed it.
The phone rang as we were turning off the lights Thursday night. It was Benn. He was calling because he was sure we had seen the results of the qualifying runs and wanted to enjoy it with us. He had already raced on Friday morning. He had a good day and we didn't even know he had a day yet. Darn those Australians for getting the days all screwed up. Did you know they set their clocks like 16 hours ahead of ours? I've heard of trying to be on time before but that's just crazy. Anyway Benn had a good qualifier and was going into the Semifinals in 5th place. He said it felt like when he was really on his game going into the 2008 Olympics. Good timing.
They advanced 30 boats to the Semifinals and previous runs don't counts, so anything can happen. We had an appointment at the bank at 4 oclock Friday and Marsha said she had found the start list and Benn was racing at 4:37. That was sort of odd since his race was Saturday morning. I was still struggling with that. But it meant we needed to hurry at the bank in order to get home and watch the live video feed. We made it. He had the fastest raw time in the semifinal but a touch, which means a 2 second penalty. that was still plenty to qualify him for the final in 5th place.
Again the final also is a fresh start but only the top ten boats. Between me and watching the final was Addie's basketball practice that lasted till 6:30, a pizza pick up and a drive home. Addie and I walked in the door as the German in front of Benn was finishing his run and Benn was in the starting gate. His run was fast and clean. clean means he didn't touch any gates, so no penalties. the run put him in second place. One guy later dropped Benn to third but he held that going into the last boat who just happened to be two time Olympic gold medalist Tony Estanget of France. Tony has messed up before, but it's rare. This was not one of those times. Benn got knocked off the podium and finished in 4th place.
Don't read that the wrong way. I am thrilled with the race. It means Benn had a great warm up race against a very strong field prior to the start of the races that count. He raced at a high quality and was clearly focused and when we talked to him thursday/friday, he was happy. I call that a success. And I don't have to spend a sleepless night looking for results. It's nice to go to bed Friday night already knowing what happened on Saturday. My only remaining question is this. Who got the birthday present on Bailey's birthday? Maybe me.
