All race reports for Ali Abbasi

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Event: Henley Qualifier 2012 - Temple Cup
Posted as: A.B. Abbasi
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With a very strong Headwind down the course and a composite crew that had only had three outings we always knew it was going to be a challenge to qualify.

We started well settling into a powerful and composed rhythm. When the rate started dipping down towards 32 we responded well to Penelope's call to get it back up and the pushes felt especially powerful. When strong gusts hit us, there were two moments of strong imbalance but we managed to recover quickly. Even towards the finish our front end remained relatively together and sharp, Lianne thought it looked "gutsy". The only critique would be that there wasn't a proper wind towards the finish, we need to work on finishing a head race properly.

We were off the fastest not qualifying crew by 16s and 12s off the Maggie/Caius composite. However we beat Jesus (by 1s) and Queens, which is good news for next year's campaign.

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Event: Lent Bumps 2013 - Wednesday
Posted as: A.B. Abbasi
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Off to a very solid start, the first whistle sounded just as we settled into a solid R37 off the stride. Whistle two and three came in quick succession through the gut.

Coming out of Grassy all hell broke loose: a lot of noise coming from the bank, waves breaking over Sam's saxboard in front of me and a pretty unsettled few strokes.

We missed the bump by a painfully small margin, and had a bad row down Plough reach. Coming into Ditton we didn't have enough left in the tank for another push and so began to fade.

Even though Jesus were no where to be found (already 5 lengths behind by the Plough judging from the video), we were happy to finish the race early with a technical row over. When Queens did eventually bump Maggie, they failed to clear quickly enough, forcing us to stop rowing.

With a few tweaks to our strategy we should be ready for a good race tomorrow and a rematch with Queens on Friday.