The first set of national team selection regattas are usually a good time for crews to shake off the long months of winter training and gage of the potential for the coming months of camp, trials, and eventually the international season.
And yesterday morning on Mercer Lake in West Windsor, NJ, that was the way the athletes and crews rowing in 2018 National Selection Regatta II and Spring Speed Order were approaching the first morning of racing.
"There was a little bit of a shock to the system," said Meghan O'Leary, who was back in the double with partner Ellen Tomek after logging significant time on the water in training, but not in racing. The 2016 Olympians, and 2017 World Championship silver medalists, are back for another season and hoping to earn sixth spot on the US National team.
"We are using this as sort of a jump off point, so it's good to get on the water," O'Leary said. The pair are rowing in the Speed Order side of the two-level event and have some time before they have to race a selection event, and finished second in the six-boat field behind Kara Kohler and Felice Mueller, who were racing together as a crew for the first time.
"The depth of sculling on the women's side is really growing," O'Leary said. "It's good to see some really fast rowing out there. So, for us, it's a good test of speed, and we will use this as a baseline to go into trials in July."
While the men's and women's doubles, and men's and women's para singles, were contested as Speed Order events with no direct impact on a national team selection, for the men's and women's pairs and the men's and women's lightweight doubles, wining at NSR II will bring an opportunity to race in a coming World Cup event and a chance to secure a spot on the 2018 US team with a high enough finish.
For Thursday morning, the racing was also the a debut of sorts for USRowing's new West Coast training center, USTC-Oakland. Three of the four men's pairs came in from Oakland.
While the training center has been functioning since January, it will not be completely in full swing until after the collegiate season when Mike Teti wraps up his final year as the Cal men's head coach.
Teti was named the new USRowing men's head coach in January, but he is not completely in place yet. Several athletes from the 2017 men's team, and some returnees for the 2016 Olympic squad, have relocated to Oakland, are training under Teti's guidance, and returned to Princeton to participate in the regatta.
For 2016 Olympian Mike DiSanto, NSR II was his first event back in a US training center crew since the Rio Olympics, where he rowed in the men's eight. Following the Games, DiSanto took 2017 off from national team training to finish his Oxford education. DiSanto said he and several other of the former Princeton men's training center athletes moved to Oakland, California in February to begin a quest for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
"It's good to be back racing," DiSanto said. "Alex (Karwoski), Andrew (Reed), and I moved out to Oakland in February. "So, we've been living and training out there and we got back to the East Coast a week ago today.
"I finished up at Oxford, got back in August of 2017, was working and training in Boston and now I'm back training full time. I'm not thinking too big picture, just kind of a day at a time," DiSanto said. "That's how I'm going to approach things for a while, and just keep plugging away."
Weather Difficulties
With weather forecasts for most of the Mid-Atlantic calling for extensive rain, wind and flooding through the rest of the week, all NSR II events have been moved up. The regatta was at first shortened by a day, with Sunday scheduled finals being moved to Saturday.
Thursday morning's conditions were perfect for racing, with just a slight drizzle and winds calm enough to keep Mercer Lake still from top to bottom. But, that is not going to be the case Friday morning and USRowing made the call to move morning racing to Thursday evening.
"It's been great racing on the East Coast again," said Tom Peszek, who is racing a pair with Tom Dethlefs. Both Peszek and Dethlefs are among the national team training center athletes from Oakland.
"The conditions today were great," Peszek said. "But I'm worried about what's coming."
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