This past Sunday concluded what was one of America’s busiest weeks in racing. Starting with NSR II during the week and progressing into high school regattas such as Stotesbury on Friday and Saturday and culminating with Eastern Sprints and Pac-12 on Sunday. The racing didn’t stop there however; as many of the high school and college trailers were being packed up another regatta was just beginning. Sunday evening held time trials, which marked the beginning of PanAm Trials. While most of our posts here at the NRF blog have to do with the US National Team, we will take a minute out of this post to touch on some of the remarkable racing from who we hope are national team hopefuls.
NSR II contained a handful of events, including the men and woman’s singles, the men’s lightweight double, and then men’s quad. Olympian Gevvie Stone won the woman’s single and Willy Cowles won the men’s single. Andrew Campbell and Josh Konieczny had an astounding win in the men’s lightweight double, crossing the line 17-seconds ahead of the next boat. The California Rowing Club men’s quad composed of Hans Struzyna, John Madura, Ryan Shelton and Paul Marcy came out on top in that event. These crews have all earned the right to go and compete at the World Cups this summer. If they earn a spot into the A final in World Cup II or III they will have qualified their respective boats to race at the World Championships this August.
While here on the National Rowing Foundation blog we normally focus on the Senior National Team, we wanted to take a second look at some of the outstanding results from what we hope are future national team members. With so much racing going on this weekend we can’t mention all the regattas or events, so we apologize ahead of time if we missed you.
Starting with Stotesbury Regatta the boys from Gonzaga and the girls from Mount Saint Joseph won the senior eights. While there was many high school races this past weekend Stotesbury stands out as being one of the oldest and largest high school regattas in the country.
College racing also had a fine showing this weekend with numerous regattas for both men and women. Starting with woman of the American Athletic Conference; Virginia came out on top in all the events with outstanding performances. In the Patriot League the woman from US Naval Academy came away the winners. In the Ivy League Championships the Bears from Brown were the clear winners in the varsity eight among other events. In the PAC-12 the California women won the varsity eight, but the women from Washington won all of the other events.
The two big regattas in men’s collegiate racing this weekend were Eastern Sprints and the PAC-12 Championship. The Bulldogs from Yale won the Men’s Varsity Eight, two seconds ahead of Northeastern, Princeton and Brown, who all crossed the line with in less then a second of each other. In the lightweight men’s eight Cornel won, crossing the line just barely a second ahead of Columbia. Washington won the PAC-12, after being down to California at the 1000m mark they pushed through to win by four seconds.
After all these races were completed those taking part in PanAm Trials took to the water on lake Mercer to race their time trials. This was the start of a regatta that culminates with finals on Wednesday and the winners will head to Toronto later this summer for the Pan American Games. We will let you know who the winners were and the odd combination of boats that come out of this regatta to form the PanAm squad once racing has concluded.