World rowing returned to Aiguebellete, FRA for the second World Cup of 2014, the first major event at the venue since the 1997 World Championship Regatta. The event also serves as the test regatta for next year's World Champs and Olympic Qualifier, so attendance was quite high as crews looked to get a feel for the beautiful Lac d'Aiguebelette (pronounced something like egg-billett for the non-Francophiles).
The lake itself is situated in the foothills of the Alps, and is ringed on two sides by a ridge with cliffs that tower 3000 feet over the venue. The brilliant turquoise waters provided perfect racing conditions for all but the first couple of races on Saturday morning, with flat water and a slight headwind for Sunday's finals.
A major difference at this regatta was FISA's decision to test out their new time-trial procedures for the heats; as a result any event that had over 12 entries ran their heats as a time trial, with progressions as normal. The remaining events with fewer than 12 entries still ran time trials on Friday, with the results used simply to seed Saturday's heats. The end result in these events was that there were some shut downs of epic proportions, so not to show too many cards for the races that counted.
Another logistical difference from 1997 was a shift in the location of the course. In 1997 the course ran entirely along the southeast shore of the lake. It has now been moved to cut across from the southeast short to the northwest shore in hopes of providing more fair racing conditions.
It was a successful regatta for the American squad, which won seven medals along with two fourth place finishes and one fifth place. The final US medal tally: gold in both eights, a silver and bronze in the women's pair, silver in both the women's quad and double, and bronze in the men's four.
In the overall medal tally, GB won 13 medals (6 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze) while New Zealand had the most efficient day of finals, winning five gold (M1x, W1x, LM4-, M2-, and LW1x) and a bronze (W4x) from the seven A Finals they qualified for. Onto the racing!
WOMEN'S PAIR
In an incredible show of depth from the USA women, the current (as of this week) USA W8+ split in to four pairs for the World Cup, and all four qualified for the A Final – three of them from the same semifinal. Crashing the party, though, were the Olympic champions Helen Glover and Heather Stanning from GBR, rowing in their first international race together since London 2012. The GBR crew dominated the race, winning by four seconds over USA1 of Megan Kalmoe and Kerry Simmonds. The USA2 crew of Grace Luczak and Caroline Lind sprinted through USA3 (Vicky Opitz and Meghan Musnicki) and CHN to snag the bronze.
"Our teammates push us all year, so it was really special to have them here to push us along with the other countries," added Simmonds after the race.
It was almost like another morning on the Carnegie, such that "Vicky Opitz was teasing that today was NSR Four," Luczak said. "Yesterday in the semifinal was NSR Three, and we just keep getting to race each other. It’s really great to have so many boats representing the red white and blue here, and at home all the girls pushing us, they could have all been in this final also."
There wasn't too much celebrating for the pairs however, as they had to row back to the boatyard to get ready to launch for the eight final.
By virtue of their NSR win and top four finish here in Aiguebellete, the pair of Kalmoe and Simmonds now have the option to be named for the 2014 World Championship squad.
MEN'S PAIR
The men's pair of Murray and Bond from New Zealand won again, using a blistering base pace throughout the body of the race to win by over ten seconds. GER took the silver with GBR pushing away from FRA to win the bronze.
LIGHTWEIGHT MEN'S DOUBLE
The French double delighted the home crowd with a commanding wire-to-wire victory in the LM2x. The USA double of Josh Konieczny and Austin Meyer had a great race, finishing in fourth and after sprinting through the Dutch. The fourth place finish locks up the light men's double spot for the duo on the World Championships roster this summer in Amsterdam.
LIGHTWEIGHT WOMEN'S DOUBLE
The light women's double was dominated by GBR, who took home both the gold and silver medals with Germany holding off Sweden for the bronze medal.
The USA LW2x of Devery Karz and Michelle Sechser were in search of a top four finish to secure their spots on the World Championships team but missed the final and finished second in the B final. They now have the option of racing in the Lucerne World Cup in three weeks, where a fourth place finish or better will earn them the World Championships spot; otherwise the event will go to trial back stateside. Selection for the double the rest of the summer should be fun!
MEN'S FOUR
The GBR men's four has been retooled since 2013, and is once again their priority crew, and they took command of a close race with the USA and AUS in the second half to win by over five seconds. Australia was able to pip the Americans at the line for the silver in a hard fought race.
American bowman Grant James was happy with the performance following the race. "It was pretty good, the water great and it was a hard fought race," he said. "Everybody was in it, and the race turned into a battle in the last 500 to see what would happen. We knew Australia was good, and it was fun to be side-by-side with them for so long. We'd move a little, they'd catch up and move a little on us. We thought we had the last push down to the line, but they just got us at the end. We learned a lot and will go back to Princeton and train hard and try and get faster for the World Championships."
Henrik Rummel was pleased with effort but will be looking for more speed out of the crew in the future. "It was a good effort, a good race," he said. "I think we just lost a little pop in the last six hundred. There were a couple of extenuating circumstances that we wish weren’t happening, but you’ve got to train through it and do what you can. Hopefully we get a little free speed there and go back and work hard and get faster.”
One extenuating circumstance was an injury in the men's eight forcing one of the rowers, Mike Gennaro from the four, to double up at the last minute.
"Doubling up kind of caught everybody by surprise," Gennaro said after catching his breath. "When someone goes down like that it's a pretty unfortunate situation, but you don't really have time to react, you got to do whatever the coaches say. Volp told me I might have to double up so be ready. Then I just kind of changed my mindset for getting ready for a long weekend. "
How did his mindset change facing the potential for six races in two days? "I'm not the best guy on the team with staying honest with warming up and cooling down, but this weekend I didn't have a choice," he said. "I had to kind of force myself into some habits that needed to be made. I can't thank Mark Novak enough for helping me get ready."
WOMEN'S QUAD
The American women's quad for the World Cup this year was a completely new line up, and selected in part from pair's results from NSR I. Whatever they are doing it has worked so far, with the new line up of Grace Latz, Tracy Eisser, Elle Logan, and Felice Mueller racing to second place behind Germany and ahead of New Zealand.
For Latz and Eisser it was their first international race and they raced hard. "We were hard pushed from the start to the finish," said Latz. "We learned so much and we are eager to go out for the next race."
Two time Olympic champion Elle Logan from the '08 and '12 eights was making her debut in the quad after racing 2013 in the single. "It was the first time in the quad for all of us, and it was great to get out there and see what we were capable off, "she said. "We just trying to push and push and push. We were working out some technical things but that kind of works itself out when you push hard."
The USA2 entry in the women's quad event featured the training center athletes Olivia Coffey, Heidi Robbins, Tessa Gobbo, and Adrienne Martelli. The crew raced to a second place finish in the B Final.
MENS QUAD
Germany led the field from the first stroke, but could not hold off the hard charging Brits in the last 500 meters of the race. GBR took gold, GER the silver, and the Canadian quad held of the Chinese to win the bronze.
LIGHTWEIGHT MEN'S FOUR
In what is often the closest race of the regatta, the Kiwi light four ran away from the rest of the field win the gold by a bit of open water, besting the Danes and Brits, who took home silver and bronze respectively.
The USA four raced a very controlled race from the start, but built speed throughout the race to pass China and the Dutch to take fourth, only five seconds behind the winners from NZL. This crew continues to show improvement, following their first A Final appearance since the 90s as last year's world championships.
MEN'S DOUBLE
The Sinkovic brothers out of the Croatian quad battled down the entire 2k with Azerbaijan, coming from behind in the last sprint to win gold with AZE barely holding off AUS on the last few strokes to take the silver.
WOMEN'S DOUBLE
The USA women's double of Meghan O'Leary and Ellen Tomek raced a gutsy race to win the silver medal behind Australia, and ahead of the Poles who won the bronze. The Americans paced Poland for the first half of the race before moving through them in the second thousand and came within a length of catching Australia.
“To keep up with the field we had to push in the second 500, and once we were with them we just wanted to keep going," Tomek said. "Meg made a call to sprint earlier than normal and we just kept going. It was a real good race.”
With their finish, O'Leary and Tomek have now qualified for the 2014 World Championship team.
WOMEN'S EIGHT
In perhaps the race of the day, the Canadian women raced out to a boat length lead at the halfway mark, only to get reeled in once again by the USA who won by almost half a length. GBR held off CHN to win the bronze.
It was the second race of the day for all eight of the Americans and four of the Canadians. All eight Americans raced in the pair final while two Canadians raced a pair and another two were out of the four earlier in the morning.
Did the length deficit worry Katelin Snyder, coxswain of the USA? "I don’t think there was a moment in the race where I was worried," she said. "I really believed in us. We were able to look around at four hundred meters to go and decided it was time. We didn’t really didn’t know what to expect from ourselves, or our competition. This was the first test of our speed this season and the other boats we were racing are incredibly fast, so when we got off the line and looked around and realized we needed to push the pace now, we didn't wait."
"The last 1000 was really fun," said Megan Kalmoe, bow of the USA 8+. "I'm a really bad bow seat in the eight, because I like to look out of the boat a lot like you do in a sculling boat. Once I saw that we had moved an inch on the Canadian coxswain I just kept talking to my pair partner in front of me, saying 'walking, walking, hell yeah'. Katelin picked up the energy and once she once she started letting loose up there you could just feel the boat start to pick up and surge like nothing else.
"The Canadians put up an awesome race," she added. "It was really cool to go out against them and have a really tough piece with a crew like that, and we're just excited we were able to come through at the end."
The USA women now head to Amsterdam to compete in the Holland Beker regatta next weekend. The plan as of this writing was to swap the scullers and sweepers to try out some different combinations.
MEN'S SINGLE
The men's single final saw a return to form by Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand as he took the win over Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic. Synek, rowing with a heavy heart after the passing of his father this week, pushed the pace for the majority of the race, but was caught in the last 500 by the reigning Olympic Champion. Cuban sculler Angel Fournier Rodriguez won bronze over Marcel Hacker of Germany. Ken Jurkowski was back racing for the USA, and finished in fifth place in the B Final.
WOMEN'S SINGLE
Kiwi Emma Twigg stamped her name on the women's single race early, building a lead in the first though and holding on for the win. CHN took the silver and AUT the bronze.
American sculler Gevvie Stone went stroke for stroke with Mirka Knapkova for fourth place, but got beat on the surge at the line and finished in fifth. The result locks up the US 1x spot for 2014, and Stone will be the women's single in Amsterdam.
Stesha Carle raced as USA2 in the women's single following her second place finish at NSR I. Carle raced to a third place finish in the C Final on Saturday.
MEN'S EIGHT
The American men's eight started fast and led the field all the way to the line to take the win. Great Britain, Belarus, and France raced hard for the last two medals with GBR taking the silver, and Belarus squeaking past France for the bronze.
Earlier in the week, a shoulder injury sidelined Ross James from the USA eight, so Mike Gennaro doubled in from the four and the goal for the race was to get out fast and control the pace.
"We got an early lead in the first 500, and more importantly we were able to execute our race plan, which was the goal for the regatta," said coxswain Zach Vlahos following the win. "We will move on from here with the goal of being as fast as possible at the World Championships."
Gennaro added, "I was feeling pretty tired for the eight final, that fours race is a tough event. There's a lot of energy in that eight. Luke has done an incredible job getting those guy's heads where they're supposed to be, so I just fell right in and tried not to disturb it too much."
Gennaro also added some perspective to the event as not all the top crews were attending. "Doubling up was cool, but I think crews like the German eight, the Australian eight, the Russian eight, the Dutch four wouldn't think it was that great since they're not here and probably would have something else to say about the two medals. We'll head home next week and keep training hard."
Comments | Log in to comment |
row2k's Worlds coverage is brought to you in part by:
row2k's Worlds coverage is brought to you in part by:
06/25/2014 4:53:11 AM
Though you have kindly given a gold to the GB lwt 4- where I think you mean bronze!