The US men’s pair raced in a truly stacked heat this morning that ended with 0.43 seconds separating first from fourth–tight enough to go up on the screen as a four-way photo finish between the Spainish, the Kiwis, the Irish, and the Swiss.

The US men will race in the reps tomorrow, along with the Swiss–last year’s world champions, whew.

row2k – On paper, did you guys look at that as if it was going to be a really tough heat?

Oliver Bub – Yeah, I would say so; it is definitely pretty stiff competition, but at the Olympics every boat is going to be fast. We approached it to race it, but it wasn’t our best piece. Luckily we have another shot tomorrow.

row2k – Having those four boats in your heat is not ideal, but on the other hand, now you’ve seen all those boats that you’re going to want to get into the final against. Is there anything you take away from that, anything to learn?

Oliver Bub – First things first, we have a race tomorrow against all different crews, so we’re going to talk with our coaches and we’ll come up with a plan.

row2k – What was it like to finally get down to racing, and even just rowing to the line today after all this training you’ve done?

Billy Bender – It’s exciting; it’s probably like the longest prep I’ve done for any regatta, so I definitely felt ready to go.

row2k – You have been together longer than last year’s pair, so what are some things guys feel like you’re able to work on by winning the trials early and being able to go to work?

Billy Bender – We’ve had more time to play around with things than we normally have, so we got the telemetry in the boat, which is first time I’ve used that kind of approach; looking at it and making changes, seeing what they look like on video and what they look like on the telemetry. It’s been an iterative process, trying to find speed; typically at a speed order, you have two weeks, not too much time to play around with a boat or look force curves. That was definitely a new and fun experience, and I think was productive.

row2k – Talk a little bit about the trajectory through that process.

Oliver Bub – At least in practice, it’s been headed in the right direction, but obviously racing is a different beast and mindset, so we’re hoping that the taper kicks in and that will feel really good for racing tomorrow.

row2k – One last question: how fast would the Dartmouth varsity have been if you were both in at the same time?

Oliver Bub -I think pretty fast; that’s definitely my big regret, that I was there a year too early to row with Bender at Dartmouth.

Full results from today’s racing can be found here, and more information about following the Olympic Regatta is on row2k’s Olympics Resources page.