For lightweight women, is there a better warmup for the IRA National Championship than the Eastern Sprints? While the top lightweight squads have recently made a regular habit of criss-crossing the country to race each other in dual or tri-meets, there is still no substitute for six-lane racing, especially if it is on the course that will host the National Championship in a month's time.
The 2012 Women's Sprints will bring seven fast lightweight squads together for the finest race in this category until the IRA. Wisconsin, Radcliffe, Princeton, Bucknell, Georgetown, MIT and UMass will line it up on the Cooper and let the chips fall where they may. The field at Sprints contains two medalists and five of six crews that made up the 2011 IRA Grand Final in the Women's Lightweight Eight so the racing promises to be fast and possibly predictive.
The Wisconsin lightweight women come into the Women's Sprints as the favorites, with wins over all six Women's Sprints teams to their credit, as well as a near-split against the defending national champions from Stanford; Wisconsin has raced the Cardinal three times, winning once and falling twice.
In addition to winning the Women's Lightweight Eight event at the Knecht Cup, where the Badgers defeated Bucknell, Princeton, Georgetown and Buffalo, Wisconsin also captured a strong 4th place finish in the Women's Openweight Varsity Eight event at that regatta. Wisconsin has also travelled to the West Coast to race Stanford, and to Boston for a weekend of racing against top lightweight teams.
Given the depth of the field at Women's Sprints, Wisconsin is likely taking nothing for granted. Bucknell, Radcliffe and Princeton all have had solid seasons and are real threats to medal or win.
Bucknell has flown under the radar thus far, but has had a winning season. "Our lightweights have shown good early season speed topping schools like Princeton and Georgetown," said Bucknell's Dan Wolleben. "They were also closer to Wisconsin during the regular season than ever before."
Radcliffe comes into Women's Sprints under first-year Head Coach Michiel Bartman, a three-time Olympic medalist. Bartman has the Rad Lights on a solid footing in his first campaign, with Radcliffe winning all three cup races on the year (against Georgetown, Princeton and MIT), including a first-ever away win against Princeton on Lake Carnegie.
"So far this season all the crews are really close together in results," said Radcliffe's Bartman. "At Sprints you will have four crews battling for the medals in the V8."
Princeton, in turn, racing with a very young squad this year, has made every opportunity count. The Tigers finished second behind Stanford at the San Diego Crew Classic, and raced a tough regular season schedule that will have them primed for Sprints.
These four teams are the likely medalists; behind them, Georgetown will also look to make an impression with their young squad while MIT and UMass round out the field.
The Lightweights at the Women's Sprints will race a full slate of events, including a 2nd Varsity Eight, Novice Eights and the Varsity Lightweight Four. In the 2nd Varsity event, which promises to be extremely tight, Radcliffe owns a win over Wisconsin, while Wisconsin in turn boasts an extremely competitive novice crew that won the openweight event at the Knecht Cup with ease in early April.
"The 2V and N8 events will be exciting to watch," said Bartman. "It is great to see the N8 back on the event list. I see a bright future for lightweight women's rowing. More universities and colleges are adding lightweight rowing to their programs which will add to the already exciting and competitive racing."
Look for the lightweight racing at the 2012 Women's Sprints to provide not only great competition, but some hard evidence on which teams will be in the hunt for the hardware and the titles at the National Championships in three weeks time.
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