If there's one take-home lesson from Saturday, beyond the obvious "rankings don't matter" standby, it's that rowing is an outdoor sport, and crews that can handle the elements better than others will always be better off than crews who can't handle the elements. Yesterday, those elements were wind and rain, the former of which was the predominant factor in a lot of races. A lot of crews were seen (from our perch high up) coming out from behind the bridge (about 750m) at various rates, and the predominantly lower rates were definitely a result of the wind.
It was painful (and somewhat amusing) to see boats emerge from under the bridge into the diamond area of the third 500m. Boats were definitely getting thrown around when the wind picked up?and not all the races were similarly affected. It's been gusty here. Both men's and women's boats have been suffering mightily?at Redwood Shores, you can see three flagpoles with flags on them, and on Saturday afternoon, you could read each flag clearly in the wind. Having said that though, the wind was not as huge of a factor in the rainy, morning races, so the results are telling.
On the NCAA women's rowing side of things, one of the explanations behind the new speed behind the midwest and southeast regional schools is that various lineups have been retooled and tuned up. Injuries, seat racing, time trailing, and yes, even erg scores can all be used as metrics to evaluate potential varsity lineups. These were different lineups than those fielded to earn the rankings seen two weeks ago when the schedule was released?these were lineups meant to make an impact at this regatta. The results mean that this weekend's losing crews will need to find that extra gear to make it to their conference championship medal stands, and ultimately to the national championship field.
NCAA men's basketball has Selection Sunday to determine the 65-team field that comprises the national champion selection process for that sport. One women's team coach was heard to describe the Windermere regatta as the Selection Sunday of women's rowing for the breadth of racing, indicative results, and national implication. Three races against geographically diverse opponents on a two-lane course: it doesn't get much better for selectors than that. There's also wind and future speed improvements to be made, but right now, I'd say the selectors have a pretty good idea of who should be going and who might not be going to Oak Ridge in May.
Looking to the men's crews, #1 Washington clearly showed its speed against Wisconsin and Trinity, pulling out early and maintaining speed to win comfortably. Stanford pulled another sprint-from-behind-to-win victory over Wisconsin, allowing many Cardinal fans to breathe. Was the race Wisconsin's to give away, or did Stanford win this one with a calculated (perhaps too closely calculated) sprint? I have to admit?these down-to-the-wire calls are pretty fun for us observers. Speaking of those, Oregon State won a nail-biter over GWU yesterday as well, with two crews separated by less than a second all the way down the course to the 1500m mark, when a bobbled GWU stroke gave Oregon State the momentum to charge through for the win. Also, you might have thought that comparing splits between Washington vs. Wisconsin and Stanford vs. Wisconsin would yield some insight into Sunday's event, but this headwind seems to have changed the whole course, so to speak. In any case, you might notice that the Stanford/Wisconsin splits in the afternoon headwind were faster than the Washington/Wisconsin splits not in the afternoon headwind?
Everything went according to seed in lightweight women's racing, except for #7 Stanford, pulling off an "upset" of #5 UCF. Early indications showed that Stanford is fast this year, however, and since this is the first real test between coasts, I suppose rankings updated after this weekend will be more valid.
As this is being written Sunday morning before the racing starts (and not Saturday evening, like a professional and more well-rested journalist might do), I can tell you that the winds have died down a bit since yesterday afternoon, and it probably won't be as wild. The sun, however, is beating down at full power?here come those mid-season unisuit tans. It's the last day of racing, time to lay it all on the line!
Comments | Log in to comment |
There are no Comments yet
|