I could blame the fact that this race was my first ever outing in a double. Or that Andrew and I had not sculled together ever. Or that I had spent most of the previous 24hr on a series of delayed flights from the States and had had negligible sleep.

But I won't. They were a lot better than us. (Ingers)

As Chris says, they were just a hell of a lot better than us and it was just the luck (or not) of the draw.
We did actually have a pretty awesome row considering the circumstances. No crashes or crabs, although we did fish out a toilet from the river (complete with turd!) (Rupert the Bear)

The winners completed the course in 8m05s, a cool 22s quicker than any of the other doubles races on Monday and Tuesday. So it seems like these guys might have been a bit unfortunate in coming up against a probable winner in the first round. (Dan)