The USA contingent delivered three medals, to include a gold in the Light Men's Pair and a pair of coxed four bronzes on the first day of Finals at Plovdiv's U23 Worlds.
The gold in the LM2- came courtesy of a come-and-get-us attack off the line by Jackson Fuller and Mason Banks that kept the Italian pair of Francesco Bardelli and Stefano Pinsone off the top step of the podium for a second straight year. A different US combination pulled the same trick on Bardelli and Pinsone last year in Varese, but this time it was Fuller and Banks, year-round teammates on the US Naval Academy's Lightweight Crew, who took charge of the race and shrugged off every move the Italians could launch.
The Navy guys were not the only US college teammates to do well in a pair: GB's all-Yale duo of Harry Geffen and Miles Beeson won the Men's Pair, after sitting 8 and 7 in the stern of the Yale varsity eight for much of the spring, and gold in the Women's Pair went to Syracuse teammates Kamile Kralikaite and Martyna Kazlauskaite (and we will hear from Kralikaite below).
The other two US medals of the morning were bronzes, and both came from the camp-selected coxed fours: first the US women came home in a tight finish just behind Australia and New Zealand, and then the US men used a massive second thousand push to storm back from 6th place to nab the final podium spot behind winner Italy and the silver medal GB crew.
In the only other A Final for the USA, the Light Men's Quad took fourth--for the second year in a row for three of the four scullers in the crew. The US had two B Finals: the Women's Quad took 3rd, for 9th overall, in tight finish just behind GBR and up on SUI, while the Men's Pair M2- took 4th, just ahead of CAN, for 10th overall.
USA lightweight single sculler Emma Mirrer won her C final, and both the Light Men's Double and Isaiah Harrison in the Men's Single finished the regatta in 14th: the LM2x behind Austria in their C Final, and Harrison getting passed by Tunisia's Fedi Ben Hammouda in the last quarter.
Light Pair Golden, Again
New lineup, but same result, much to Italy's chagrin: the unchanged Italian boat came silver to two Americans last year, in Nathaniel Sass and Collin Hay, and this year's Men's Light Pair of Jackson Fuller and Mason Banks did it in similar style: coming back in the final to beat the crew that won the first round by playing all their cards when it counted.
Watch the video replay of the full race here.
"We packed our work boots, hard hat, and lunch pail for the final and it paid off," he added, referencing a few of the touchstones of the Navy Lightweight program that he and Banks hail from. During the year, Fuller and Banks also sat stroke and bow--but in an eight--so they are a bit more used to having six other midshipmen betwixt them, and one at the helm, of course.
"It’s great to be in command of the race, especially against such an experienced and talented crew in the Italians," said Fuller. "Very proud to represent the USA, Navy Lightweight Rowing, and Green Racing Project. It was great to be racing at such a nice venue in Plovdiv, despite the heat."
During the medals ceremony, when the Star Spangled Banner was played, the Naval Academy teammates, as active duty servicemen, stood at attention for the anthem. Banks will return to Annapolis for two more years of school, while Fuller is a freshly graduated and newly commissioned Ensign in the U. S. Navy.
Women's Coxed Four With Stays in the Fight, for Bronze
With just five entries, the women's coxed four went straight from a preliminary race to a final again this year. While the final might have served up the same order finish order as the prelim--Australia first, New Zealand second, and USA third), Saturday's racing, being the real thing, was on a completely different level.
Each crew on the podium had to see off a hard charge from the crew just behind them to keep their spot. The US crew flirted with taking second from the Kiwis all the through the last 500, and that duel ate up a fair portion what had looked to be an early full-length lead by the Aussies--at the line, Australia held on to win, but by just half a length.
Watch the video replay of the full race here.
"After the prelim, we were fired up to chase down Australia and New Zealand and worked a lot on our sprint these past two days," said Eva Frohnhofer, stroke of the US crew.
"It was disappointing to execute that and still fall short of New Zealand by less than a second but we're all incredibly proud of each other and the fight we gave and where we did end up."
Coxswain Camille Arnold-Mages agreed:
"I am extremely proud of my boat and the race we had today. The amount of grit and determination our crew has is palpable. You could feel it from the minute we came to the course."
"One thing I love about racing is when it’s a dog fight," added Arnold-Mages, "and that’s definitely what we had today. Throughout the race all I thought of is how much work we’ve put in and how far we’ve come."
For stroke seat Frohnhofer that was further than most: she walked-on to the University of Virginia team as a first year and worked her way all the way up to the Cavalier's Varsity eight and, now the US U23 squad.
"Up until four years ago I hadn't participated in any athletic competition or practice, for that matter," she said, when we asked about the experience of going from walking-on to an international podium. "I just can't help but to be so grateful to even be here at an international competition at all, let alone to win a medal with such an amazing four boat mates."
Men's Coxed Four Turns On the Jets to take Bronze
Trailing in sixth place with 1000 meters to go is hardly ever an ideal position, but for the USA's determined quartet and coxswain Sammy Houdaigui, crossing the halfway mark in last place was the perfect place to launch an attack.
"It’s easy to make things overly complicated," Houdaigui shared afterwards, "but in this boat we found the three core focuses that allow us to sustain speed and rate.
"When we were down ,I was just hammering those core focuses and building up the move we had coming. After that, it was just letting these guys be the four toughest Americans the country has ever built and, whenever things started coming off the rails, giving them a part of the stroke to rally behind. We lifted early and every guy had confidence in the man in front of them.
"This is a boat that’s a new boat," Houdaigui added, "so the focus has been improve every session, improve every race."
That move and early lift gave the US boat the fastest 3rd 500 split in the field, and put them right up on the mix to pip Australia for bronze behind the gold medal Italians and the GB four in second.
Watch the video replay of the full race here.
"We had a pretty decent start to the race, although we were in last place from the jump," said three seat Braden Porterfield. "We knew that we were focusing on the starting 500m of the race and trying to maintain as much speed as possible going into the middle 1k."
"It's pretty hard not to look at the other boats when you're down so far," Porterfield confessed, "but we all trusted Blake's rhythm and soon enough we started to see more and more of Germany and Australia's stern. Sammy made a call with 800m to go saying 'if we want a medal we have to go now' and something clicked. We started to pick up momentum, and we came out on top."
Porterfield also touched on how new the lineup was, as a camp selected boat, but said the crucible of selection helped them win their medal:
"It was definitely a tough 3 weeks with a lot of seat racing and mixed lineups but through turmoil at the end of camp, we had to come together a lot quicker than some crews might have. I am super happy on how the boat was able to come through adversity, and come to Bulgaria with a straight head and a common goal in mind: Win some hardware."
US Crews--and US Based Crews
While the US team itself might have been in the medals just three times today, there was a steady parade on the podium of athletes who train in the US and have been racing the NCAA and IRA college circuit. In fact, two of Australia's crews here are full of athletes who never went back to Oz at all this year: the Women's Four--golden today--and Men's Eight--a direct qualifier for tomorrow's A Final--were selected in the States, almost entirely with US-based athletes (you can see the athletes and schools here).
As mentioned up top, a few of those crews--like the GB Men's Pair and the Lithuanian Women's Pair--featured athletes who have been training together all year on the same collegiate team. row2k caught up with Kamile Kralikaite to ask what it was like to race, and win, for Lithuania with her Syracuse teammate, Martyna Kazlauskaite.
"It feels so special to have the Lithuanian team cheering on us and also the Syracuse team," Kralikaite said. "I love nothing more than being a part of something . I love my Syracuse team. We worked so hard this whole year so we came back to Lithuania strong and ready to go."
In their final, the Lithuanians held serve all the way down the track, but a hard-charging Dutch pair made the champs earn their win:
"The whole race felt like we were in control," said Kralikaite, "but we were still anxious about how close the Dutch girls were. Still, I felt confident that we could do great in this Championship because the preparation went super smoothly and successfully. We came here in a good shape and with a good mindset."
Eights Will Feature on Final Day Tomorrow
Racing wraps up tomorrow, with A Finals starting 3:10 AM EDT ('How to Watch' info here). There will be a full slate of exciting chases for the medals, but the USA will feature in just two of them: the eights. Last year, the USA won the Women's Eight and got silver in the Men's Eight; this year the women won their heat and the men won their repechage to make the final--tomorrow they race for medals at 4:56 AM EDT and 5:32 AM EDT respectively
Notes From The Course
Racing on 4 Minute Centers - World Rowing officials must have ice in their veins, because the hot weather-compresseed schedule meant a shift on Saturday to 4 minute centers for many of the lower finals, which meant that the the next race was only about 500m away when the previous race was ending--and from the start platform, you could see crews warming up in lanes as the races were heading towards them. It would be unnerving, if it wasn't running like clockwork.
How hot is it? Saturday topped out near 100 on the heat index before the racing could finish , which meant row2k was just trying to keep the camera cool enough between races so the camera body would stop burning our faces--and you could see more than a few athletes getting medals while looking pretty wobbly: many boats rowed back missing a person.
Next Gen Talent - the U23 is all about the next generation of rowers coming up, but here in Plovdiv, there are a number of athletes with a National Team parent, or two. On our likely partial list so far: the US Men's Four with has Braden Porterfield, son of Mike Porterfield, and Keith Ryan, son of Missy Schwen-Ryan; the Canadian Women's Eight has Mira Calder, daughter of Dave Calder; and the New Zealand Men's Four with has Matthew Waddell, son of Dave Waddell and nephew of Rob Waddell. Kids grow up to be so fast these days...
Y is for Yale - a good look here at Yale teammates Geffen and Beeson showing some school spirit:
But you really need to bring a team flag to win the school spirit award:
D is the Loneliest Final... - as usual, row2k was the only photographer on station for the smallest of the small finals, but D Finals matter, too.
Podium Pros - yet again, we saw that the Italians are the best at celebrating, especially when it comes to whole boat jumping on the podium. Other teams try, but they just don't have it down like the Azzurri do. Türkiye's Light Women's Quad had a notable fail, though to be fair the one athlete in the crew who knew to jump did a good job, but the rest of the boat hadn't read the memo that it was coming.
Better than a medal, maybe? - Getting featured for your mullet, naturally:
(but sorry, World Rowing, we've been on this story and following that guy for years)
And Finally - by the end of the day, the heat index out on the course hit 101...and the Romanian 8 was out practicing.
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