News from the coaches of the 2005 Australian U23 crews Tuesday 19th July 2005 Hi all, We arrived in Amsterdam Monday in time for lunch at the Hotel Schiphol A4. The hotel is very close to the Airport and about 15mins by bus to the Bosbaan course. Pretty much everyone has their boats set up and have been for a paddle this afternoon. It was pretty warm and humid, with a reasonable tailwind on the course. Everyone is in good spirits and certainly becoming more chirpy as the regatta gets closer and the training is lightened off. We were one of the first teams at the course so were able to settle in without the extra stress of having many of the other teams around. Canada, New Zealand and Hong Kong were there also and I'd expect that most of the other teams arrive today. Our accreditations were also sorted out today which is great to have that done before everyone else gets here. Attached a few photos. More soon. Gordo From the lightweight men's four We have now been in Europe for two and a half weeks now and feel as though we have learned more about racing in the last two weeks than ever before. It was a thrill and a privilege to compete against crews from the Athens Olympics at the World Cup in Lucerne. While we were certainly off the pace of the font runners, we gave some of the crews a good shake along. While we haven't been rowing, we've taken advantage of the team bicycles to do a bit of sight seeing around the town, which has earned us the name as "the tourists" by the rest of the team. The Tilburg camp has allowed us to really sharpen our skills and improve our racing speed with some intensive work. The boys have also taken advantage of the beach volley ball court to lose a few last morsels of fat to make weight. It was not uncommon for us to be thumping it out until 10.30 in the evening, with lots of trash talk between the Victorians and our ACT boys. Now that we are in Amsterdam and the regatta is only days away we feel ready to race at the highest level. We expect all the work we did back in Canberra and the training at our camp in the south of the Netherlands to pay off. In many ways the tour has already been a success with athletes gaining invaluable experience. However the world champs is the real deal so bring it on, Australia is ready. Andrew Mackenzie (coach)