ST. CATHARINES, Ont., Canada - Molly Bruggeman (Dayton, Ohio) and Emily Huelskamp (Sainte Genevieve, Mo.) won gold Monday in the women's pair, the first event of the 2015 Pan American Games. Their race was immediately followed by a stunning silver-medal performance from Lindsay Meyer (Seattle, Wash.) and Nicole Ritchie (Dummerston, Vt.) in the women's double sculls.
The roar of the finish line crowd at the rowing venue in St. Catharines could be heard at the start line 2,000 meters away. Even for the athletes that have raced on this course several times before at the well-known Royal Canadian Henley Regatta, this international event "just feels different."
For the U.S., today was a golden start for two days of finals to follow. Bruggeman and Huelskamp dominated in the final of the women's pair, leading at each of the 500-meter markers to win gold in 7:20.98 and finish 12 seconds ahead of second-place Melita and Antonia Abraham of Chile.
"We really just focused on staying relaxed and the fact that we were up at the 500, we knew we were able to do it and could just focus on ourselves," said Huelskamp. "We were pleased with our execution. We set our rhythm and put it all together."
For both USRowing Training Center athletes, winning gold at the Pan Am Games is a stepping-stone for the bigger goals they have for their rowing careers.
"It's experience. Every race that we do, it builds on each other," said Huelskamp, who also trains at Riverside Boat Club and won gold in the four at the 2013 World Rowing Championships. "Going forward, toward the Olympics, it's like a pre run-through of what we can expect in Rio or another cycle."
"It's good to line up against a lot of great teams from our half of the world," said Bruggeman, who won two under 23 gold medals last year in Italy. "We'll use it as a tool to learn from, further ahead."
In the women's double sculls, Meyer and Ritchie gave it their all for a silver-medal performance, finishing just 1.64 seconds behind Canada's Kerry Shaffer and Antje Von Seydlitz in a time of 7:14.65.
"We just fought through the middle, trying to get the best position we could going into the sprint with Canada heading into the last 500 [meters]. They just had bigger engines than us today," said Meyer, who returns to international competition from the Beijing women's quad.
"I thought I was going to die a little bit. At that point, everyone is flying on the go—not a whole lot of thinking involved. That's why we train so much, so many miles, so when you get into that scenario, you don't even have to think about it. It just goes. It was a good race. We gave it all we had."
The U.S. just missed the podium in the men's double sculls, as Ryan Monaghan (Pittsford, N.Y.) of California Rowing Club and Sam Stitt (McLean, Va.) of Potomac Boat Club finished fourth behind Cuba, Argentina and Canada.
"Around 500 (meters), everyone was pretty tight," said Monaghan. "We didn't have the best second 500, and there was a lot of damage done at that point. You can't really afford to get behind crews that are as good as these guys. We did what we could do, but it wasn't enough."
Monaghan and Stitt join U.S. lightweight double scullers Austin Meyer (Cohoes, N.Y.) of Cambridge Boat Club and Colin Ethridge (Laytonsville, Md.) of Malta Boat Club in the men's quadruple sculls final tomorrow at 10:45 a.m., which follows Meyer and Ethridge's lightweight double final at 10:05 a.m.
"I think we have a better idea of what we need to do with the lightweights in the quad," said Stitt, who finished fifth in the event at the Beijing Olympic Games. "We're looking the have a better race, a little higher rating and pushing it a little harder. In a bigger boat, it's less power-based and more technique, more swing. We've had a couple really good rows with those guys, so we're really looking forward to jumping in there and just seeing what we can do."
The U.S. men's four also finished fourth in the final, five seconds off the podium. Coming off of a third-place finish in the preliminary round, Keane Johnson (Palo Alto, Calif.), Nareg Guregian (North Hills, Calif.), Kyle Peabody (LaGrange, N.Y.) and David Eick (Raleigh, N.C.) held with the leaders through the middle of the race, but struggled with wayward steering in the second half, posting a time of 6:21.13.
Canada's top crew of Conlin McCabe, Kai Langerfeld, Tim Schrijver and Will Crothers won gold in 6:10.80, followed by Cuba in 6:14.03 and Argentina in 6:16.52.
U.S. crews will go to the line Tuesday in search of five more medals. In addition to the lightweight men's double and men's quad, Vesper Boat Club's Katherine McFetridge goes to the line at 9:35 a.m., lightweight women's double scullers Victoria Burke (Redding, Conn.) and Sarah Giancola (Buffalo, N.Y.) from GMS Rowing Center compete at 9:45 a.m., and USTC - Oklahoma City's Brendan Harrington (Garden City, N.Y.) and Matthew Mahon (St. Louis, Mo.) race at 10:25 a.m.