WEST WINDSOR, N.J. - Finals are set at the 2009 USRowing World Championship Trials at the Finn M.W. Caspersen Rowing Center on Mercer Lake in West Windsor, N.J. Repechages were contested in three events Wednesday, with the top two crews advancing to the finals.
In the women's single sculls, Potomac Boat Club's Mae Joyce Gay and USRowing Training Center's Jessica Reel (Ojai, Calif.), a gold medalist in last year's Under 23 women's eight, advanced from the repechage. Gay controlled the race form start to finish, winning in a 7:47.93. Reel sat in third place at the 1,000-meter mark, but sprinted past Undine Barge Club's Catherine Reddick (Birmingham, Ala.) for the second-place qualifying spot, clocking a 7:53.29. Reddick crossed third in an 8:01.23, with Lake Washington Rowing Club's Emily Simonds (Concord, Mass.) fourth in an 8:33.54. Gay and Reel will join yesterday's heat winners, USTC's Brett Sickler (Los Gatos, Calif.) and Potomac's Margot Shumway (Westlake, Ohio) in Thursday's finals.
USTC's Scott Gault (Piedmont, Calif.) and Wes Piermarini (West Brookfield, Mass.) won the repechage of the men's double sculls to advance. Gault, a member of the men's quadruple sculls in Beijing, and Piermarini, who raced the event at the 2008 Olympic Games, crossed in a 6:33.27, just 1.65 seconds ahead of USTC teammates Pat Sullivan (St. Paul, Minn.) and Deaglan McEachern (Portsmouth, N.H.). Sullivan and McEachern clocked a 6:34.92 in second, with the Vesper Boat Club/New York Athletic Club duo of James Dietz (Amherst Mass.) and Ben Churchill (Portland, Ore.) in third with a 6:39.39. Both USTC crews will race in the final, along with Craftsbury Sculling Center's Thomas Graves (Cincinnati, Ohio) and Peter Graves (Cincinnati, Ohio) and the USTC/Penn A.C. Rowing Association/GMS Rowing Center duo of Stephen Whelpley (Moquon, Wis.) and Michael Sivigny (Hudson, N.H.) who advanced to the finals after winning yesterday's heats.
In the lightweight women's single sculls, Pocock Rowing Center's Carmel Zahran (Oakbrook, Ill.) and Cecily Shiel (Brookline, Mass.) of Lake Union Crew advanced from the repechage. Zahran held nearly a four-second lead over Shiel at the halfway mark and kept it through the finish line to win in an 8:14.14. Shiel crossed second in an 8:17.53 to secure her spot in the finals. Rowing unaffiliated, Dani Dewitt (Parkersburg, W. Va.) finished third in an 8:32.77, followed by Lake Washington Rowing Club's Nicole Sherey (Ft. Worth, Texas) in an 8:46.08. Zahran and Shiel will join yesterday's heat winners Meghan Sarbanis (Hampstead, N.H.) of Undine Barge Club and Union Boat Club's Catherine Infantino (Boston, Mass.) in the finals.
Finals, which are held in a best two-out-of-three format, begin Thursday at 7:30 a.m. with racing in all events including the men's adaptive single sculls, men's single sculls, women's single sculls, lightweight men's single sculls, lightweight women's single sculls, men's pair, women's pair, lightweight men's pair, men's pair with coxswain, men's double sculls, lightweight men's double sculls, lightweight women's double sculls, lightweight men's quadruple sculls, lightweight women's quadruple sculls, women's four and lightweight men's eight.
The trials, which run through Saturday, will select 16 boats that will represent the United States at the 2009 World Rowing Championships August 23-30 in Poznan, Poland. For a complete schedule and race results, please visit www.powerhousetiming.com.