The Pan Am Games can be a tremendous experience for rowers of all sorts, featuring as they do a heap of "Olympic-ish" events and bennies - multiple sports, athlete villages, sponsors all over the place, opening and closing ceremonies, and heaps of gear. The Games always take place in the pre-Olympic year, and will be held in North America this year; the 2015 Games will be centered in Toronto, while the rowing will take place 30 miles to the south across Lake Ontario (a 90' drive) at the well-known rowing course in St. Catharines, Ontario.
For US rowers, the Pan Am Games trials are often a mix of truly new faces, veterans making comebacks (or in many cases never-really-lefts or filling out bucket lists), sweep rowers converting to sculling and vice versa (some within the past few days), former collegiate walk-ons, camp and club rowers, and more; this year's edition was all of those and then some - with some brutal tailwind conditions in the later finals on Wednesday morning that created some (little too) wild racing.
Some of those new faces will undoubtedly show up in the National Team trading cards at some point; Pan Am teams have historically been packed with future World or Olympic team members, whether they be "next-quadrennial" candidates or break through in the next 12-14 months. We talked to all the winners after the racing; here is what they had to say.
Men's Single
Single sculler Yohanne Rigogne covered most of the bases above – he was the USA single sculler last year, but then switched into the pair with Tom Peszek last fall, which they raced at the National Selection Regatta on April 22-24, placing second. The duo was subsequently invited to the men's sweep camp, but Rigogne had to decline due to work – so he got back in the single. I asked about the challenges of returning to one of rowing's most challenging boats.
"The first week was pretty tricky," Rigogne said with a laugh. "When you row sweep it's a bit different technique, a little bit more powerful, and I could lean more on size and speed through the water. That first week was a lot of work on getting back on the basics on the sculling event. I was going to do NSR2, but I was not quite ready I think to perform well, so I decided to scratch and concentrate on Pan Am trials. Then last week I got way faster on the Schuylkill in Philly, and today obviously it paid off."
Since the NSR events can potentially end up going to trials again later in the summer, Rigogne's options are very open, but for now he is focusing on the single.
"I was still looking at if I had still enough speed in the single to see if I can push through it for the summer, and it looks like I'm still fast enough," he said. "I might take that and see how it goes at Pan Am in Canada and maybe see from there. But everything is open, so I could see going back to sweep before the summer is over. It went pretty good in both so I'm open (to either)."
Women's Single
Katherine McFetridge walked on to the USC women's rowing team in the fall of 2007 after inadvertently asking a women's rowing coach if the school had a club field hockey team. During summers back home from school, the south Jersey native commuted across the bridge to the Undine Barge Club in Philadelphia to row the single for fun and to stay in shape. Last February, as the current Vesper squad was coming together, she moved down the Row to Vesper.
"I walked on (at USC), and came home and there was this mecca of rowing right across the bridge," she recalls. "So I joined Undine, and that's how I started rowing the single. I think that really helped me get in shape and learn some boat feel."
It came together today as McFetridge's plan to get the race under control early panned out.
"I got out quick, that was the goal," she said. "Get out and then just kind of enjoy using what I had in the tank. It went as planned, and I was able to accomplish what I was going for in that way."
The plan put her on her first US team, which McFetridge said had yet to sink in, and that she wasn't get ahead of herself just yet.
"You have to believe it's going to happen, but you can't believe it's going to happen, you know? You think it's going to happen, but still after so many years and hard work it's a dream come true."
Men's Double
For the men's double, stroke seat Ryan Monaghan has been working his way back from a shoulder surgery followed by a knee injury when he needed a doubles partner – so he asked 2012 Olympian Sam Stitt if he was interested. Stitt had putatively retired from elite rowing, but not from, you know, rowing, having recently raced in buddy boats (albeit pretty fit buddy boats) in Amsterdam and at the San Diego Crew Classic – both legitimate fun races for an athlete phasing out of the rigors of elite training.
"Ryan called me up about two to three weeks ago and said he needed a doubles partner, Stitt said. "I've been training with Potomac group and just kind of staying in shape, helping out with seat racing and just kind of be the steady constant in that group. We've rowed together before, so I knew what I was getting into."
" I had two injuries this year that set me back, and it's been since 2011 that I had a small boat result so I was looking to get my name back into it," Monaghan said. "Most of the guys that I knew from back when I was on the team have retired, so I called up Sam, who I knew was still touching an oar once in a while and asked if he had any interest in doing Pan Ams. We went out last week and we kind of threw it together. It was pretty good right from the start. It's easy to row with Sam."
The duo had a bit of an eventful race on the course, however, after their usually reliable start didn't hold up as well as it has lately.
"We usually have a pretty fast start - it's something we pride ourselves on - but this time we were actually in last place crossing the 250," Stitt related. "I think these younger guys just wanted it; they knew what they had to do in this race and coming out of the heats they knew what speed we had. Crossing the 250 the other Potomac and Penn AC boat had open water on us. Still, we just mostly were focused on establishing our rhythm and in the middle of the race hitting that base pace and kind of taking our focus points here and there."
"Sam's got pretty good composure and control during the race, and our speed felt really good, so we knew that if someone was going a lot faster than where we were at that point we'd be able to catch up," Monaghan added. "We both felt pretty good crossing the thousand, then I think our efficiency came and helped us a little bit. Then things just started to go our way and we just kept going with it.
As for Stitt's notion of retirement?
"I've been doing some fun races this year, with the Amsterdam race back in March, then San Diego Crew Classic," Stitt said. "So for me staying in shape has its perks. Obviously it's tough for anybody in this sport to retire completely and just give it up. I enjoy training with the group, I love getting up every morning. It's kind of sadistic in a way, but it's fun. I like the people, and it's a great sport, so there's no real down side to it."
"It was either this or Masters Worlds, so I'm glad it worked out," Monaghan concluded.
Women's Double
The women's double of Nicole and Lindsay Meyer is a classic blend of a newcomer and a veteran – bow seat Nicole Ritchie made her first US team today, while Meyer was on the Beijing Olympic team along with five other senior, U23, and junior teams - although this is her first since she rowed the single in 2010. The duo have been training together in the double and sparring in singles since early last fall.
The double came out on top in a pretty wild race that included at least a couple lead changes, and mainly by big diggers caused by whitecapping rollers. As the finish line approached, the duo were in a position to win it with a sprint, and they went for it.
"We've actually been practicing our sprint a lot recently, so I think that definitely helped us just to be able to stay calm," Meyer said. "Because that water was crazy out there."
The crew may have different US uni counts to their names, but their excitement at making the team was pretty much on par, if for different reasons.
"I'm really excited because this is the first time I've made a team," Ricthie said "I think starting to row, Lindsey has helped me realize that's something I can do and I'm just so pumped to be here after a lot of years of training."
"I'm pumped," Meyer said. "It's been a couple years of disappointment and not being on a team so I'm excited to get back out there and do the fun part."
Light Women's Single
Mary Jones spent most of the fall and winter contending for the double at her home club of Vesper, and credits the effort put in then for her win today.
"There's a handful of girls that were going for the double, and we were really beating each other up all winter," she said. "All of us made significant gains in fitness, on the erg and in power. We stayed in the doubles for a long time, so to see Michelle and Deborah come out and show what we've been working on in Vesper in their race, that was really satisfying. That weekend I was still in the heavy double so I was really happy being able to race."
Like Rigogne, Jones has only been back in the single a relatively short time.
"Hopping back in the single, in that first week it is a little bit rough but it comes back," she said. "It was great to have an opportunity to show for myself what we've been working on all winter as well."
In fact, it is one of Jones's first sprint events in the single at a high level.
"I went over to the Silver Skiff and that was good, and I raced the quad last year, which is a different beast than the single for international racing," she said. "The cool thing is that our training right now is focused on international time standards, and everything we do is international time standards percentages regardless of who your competition is. So you're going after a certain number, a certain bar that you're trying to get over. When you go up against your fast competition or you go race internationally you kind of know what to expect because you're always holding yourself to that standard."
With the Pan Am racing in St. Catharines, one of the attractions for many of the winners is the prospect of having friends and family see them race internationally, especially with some of the Olympic-ish trappings that come with the Pan Am Games.
"It's exciting for me to go and race, but what I actually think about more is that since it's so close I have a lot of family that will be able to come and watch and see everything," she said. "They've been my support system for this whole process. In a way it's a chance for them to be able to go and experience something Olympic-like, and enjoy some of the benefit of all this hard work."
Men's Lightweight Double
The winning men's lightweight double of Colin Etheridge and and Austin Meyer raced in the NSR just a few days back, and seem to have gained a bit of speed since then as they were able to separate themselves from the field today. Stroke Austin Meyer confirmed that the crew has been coming together in recent days.
"Without a doubt Colin and I are an improved crew from last week," he said. "In fact, it wasn't really until Monday's heat that we started to click at rate. We knew that we were taking a big risk of getting it wrong at NSR2 with only a week together, but we also knew that the racing would benefit us in the long run."
The crew had spent the previous week with a lot of today's winners.
"The week before we had been training in Philly with a really impressive Vesper group, and we spent a lot of easy miles together – including a few 2 hour nonstop 30km rows that would be sure to drive any new combination a little bonkers."
Prior to that, the double had been in a group training in Boston, and knew that they weren't the frontrunners for NSR2, but gave it a shot nonetheless.
"We decided to race NSR2 because, frankly, we had nothing to lose," Meyer said. "There are so few times that athletes get to race in the U.S. that we should take advantage of every chance we get to be in a race environment. Andy and Josh showed up ready to go and that's a testament to the training we had been doing back in Boston since the fall with Scott Roop. I'm excited to see those guys perform at World Cup 2.
In our double, I think there is a ton of potential. It's helpful to draw upon my past experiences racing the LM2x internationally to see what kind of crew Colin and I can make. Every combination has their natural strengths and weaknesses, and sorting those out are what makes the sport interesting to me. The Pan Am trials were a good and needed step in the right direction, but we are still quite early in our development towards an internationally competitive double."
In addition to racing their own event in St. Kitts, the duo will join the heavy double in the quad.
"We're really looking forward to the Games in Toronto," he said. "It should be a great experience. Plus, I know how excited Stitt and Ryan are to be rowing with us in the quad, I don't think I've ever seen Sam so animated (insert amusing picture of Stitt here)."
(As it goes, we have this photo sent by Sam this week, which he explains thusly: "We recently started a tradition of cooking a big breakfast for my once host family in Princeton, whenever we are back in the area. From all Olympians, National Teamers, and Hopefuls that have been housed and fed by these families, thank you. What you do for us is immeasurable.")
Women's Lightweight Double
The light women's double of Sarah Giancola and Victoria Burke of GMS is composed of a couple easterners who ended up training in California for much of the winter.
"Sarah and I came together in late January, early February," Burke said. "She was training out here on the east coast, and I was on the west coast in LA coaching with UCLA, so I asked her to come out. We tried the double out there and felt pretty good about the potential, so we've just been working on it since then. We came east to race NSR1 and get some race experience under us and that was a good result I think for us. We felt excited to come to Pan Am trials and do a little bit more work and get some more race experience under our belts."
The experience is piling up for the crew as they go through the summer racing, but Burke felt that the crew still has room to improve.
"I wouldn't say that we feel we're at the bottom of the curve and the world is ours, but I think we're just going through every race and feeling like there's more and more and more and a lot of room for development and we both know personally, individually, there's stuff we want to be getting better at over the next year and then as a boat there's stuff we want to be getting better at over the next year. I certainly feel like there's a lot of growth still that's going to happen.
It's been super exciting," Giancola said. "I feel like up until this point the progress we've made this far has just been a fun process. For instance, I came out to LA in January to train with Victoria. Where I come from you erg inside all winter, and we've been able to do a ton of rowing which is obviously great. Then there is hiking and beach runs, so getting super fit and also getting faster on the water, as well as just matching in the double better every practice."
Giancola is from Buffalo, which besides having a pretty different climate than Los Angeles, is also mere miles from the Pan Am racecourse. In fact, it turns out she was born in Canada, a couple miles from St. Catharines.
"My family is from Niagara Falls, and I grew up at Canadian Henley basically," she said. "That course is like my back yard. I'm excited to race there, it'll be fun."
Will the your whole family show up?
"Oh yes, you'll have a lot of Canadian Italians."
Men's Pair
In the men's pair, the winning crew of Matt Mahon and Brendan Harrington of Oklahoma City were a couple lightweights rowing in a heavyweight event in which they were spotting some of the competition a small child per seat, so you would expect them to resort a bit to wits to get the job done.
"We noticed during the row up to the start that the course was pretty choppy but somewhat protected in the first 250 meters or so," Mahon said. "Our plan was to try and jump out in front at the start, in the protected water, then try to row as smoothly as possible and control the race. We are a lighter boat so we used that to our advantage, jumped out in front, then tried to stay calm and relaxed through the rest of the race."
Otherwise the crew didn't focus too much on whether they were rowing heavy or light, and of course the US light and heavy men race side by side whenever possible. As a result, the pair took a bit of a workaday approach overall.
"We didn't really have to approach the race too much differently; our biggest goal going in was getting some more racing experience together and pushing ourselves against fast competition," Mahon said. "We gained quite a bit of experience and had some great competition so it was a great regatta for us."
At the Pan Ams, the pair will also double into the eight with the winning men's four, as well as the second place pair from the trial, Taylor Brown and Erick Winstead – which should be great fun for anyone spending an entire summer in the pair.
"We are both super excited to have the opportunity to race in the 8+," Mahon said. "You can always learn a lot by mixing things up and rowing in a new lineup in a different boat class. Switching between the 8+ and 2- will definitely keep us on our toes and make sure we aren't getting complacent. It's a great group of guys in the boat so I don't think it will take to long for us to match up and find some speed. We're very excited for Toronto."
Women's Pair
The women's pair of Emily Huelskamp and Molly Bruggeman came out of the training center, where everyone rows the pair quite a bit, so it would be easy to chalk the win up to all the nearly routine miles in the boat. But this pair comes with a twist in that Huelskamp raced the single in the second NSR just six days ago – but all the while had been rowing the pair with Bruggeman.
Even when the two were in the training mix in the pair, they only got together a couple weeks back.
"The first day we both stepped into a pair was early May, and even then we weren't partners at first," Bruggeman said. "It took a few cycles through our group to get to Emily and I, and it immediately felt like we could lay down a solid rhythm together.
"Once our lineup was set, we split our days: one practice a day in the pair and the other practice in singles to get Emily ready for NSR II. We weren't able to practice during her racing but we remained confident in our capability to execute together; we got back in the pair Thursday afternoon and put together a solid time trial on Sunday.
"It's great to have a partner so experienced behind me," she said of Huelskamp. "She was able to coach and watch me during our practices, and we really worked well together.
Huelskamp was somewhat nonplussed by the quick switch from sculling to sweeping; all in a (few) days work at the training center.
"Tom likes to have us switch from sculling to sweeping from time to time so the transition was pretty easy for my body to handle," she said" "I was working on boat feel in the single and that can (theoretically) only help boat feel in the pair. I think we were both committed to making it move and making it faster and Molly is a good, diligent rower so that makes it pretty easy to follow and throw the pressure on."
Even so, the conditions wouldn't seem to favor a new-ish pair, and there were a couple formidable bobbles in a couple crews in the last 10-15 strokes. The pair saw it coming, though, and adjusted well ahead of time.
"We knew from the warm-up that the flattest water was going to be in the first part of the race, so we took full advantage of it and then just tried to keep working ahead from there," Huelskamp said. "Adventure rowing at its finest!"
The crew is looking forward to spending some sustained and quality time in the pair now that trials are over.
"As tends to be true for most boats, I think we can only get faster the longer we row together," Huelskamp said. "We are having fun learning how we react in different racing situations as individuals and morphing it together for a cohesive, strong boat."
"Today's racing was pretty rough and we had quite a few rough patches but we remained confident in each other to get it done and come out with the win. Our teammates pushed us all the way to the line which was awesome. At the end of the day, we just want to go fast and we put all our energy into that and making it happen, we have a lot of room to grow. I'm excited to see where it will take us at Pan Ams!"
Lightweight Men's Four
Both the light men's four and the men's four rowed the trials uncontested, so for today's final they requested permission to row side-by-side for the final to get some racing experience. By the time their race came around, which was the last race of the day, conditions were more about survival than about racing, but the crews made the most of it.
"We had been practicing with them the past couple of weeks so we thought it would be more fun to just race side-by-side," Andy Wyland said. "The officials accommodated us and let us do that."
"It helps make it more competitive so we could put down a faster time maybe," Peter Gibson added.
"But it was almost to the point where the tailwind wasn't really helpful anymore, so we really focused on trying to stay clean and get our clearance at the finish," Matt O'Donoghue said.
The four has been training together for some time in Oklahoma City, but feels like they still have room to improve as the summer goes on.
"We're definitely still on the up," Wyland said. "I think we have a lot more speed, we can continue to gain, and we have been gaining pretty steadily I would say. We're excited for the summer.
"It's still pretty early on, but I think this was a good way to practice the way the regatta will run at the Pan Ams with the races spaced several days apart and the weigh-ins and all," O'Donoghue said. "It's really good to get that experience under the belt. It went really smoothly. I think we're pretty happy with the performance overall."
Men's Four
Like the light men's four, the heavy men's four did a one-boat time trial on Sunday night; I talked to stroke Nareg Guregian about how the crew approached it, especially since the crew came together only very recently.
"You have to be internally motivated in a time trial where there isn't a boat next to you," he said. "You just want to get the best out of yourself, so we just said we're going to try to execute the race time we want to execute, have a good start - the basic stuff. We're still a pretty new crew. We've had a lot of lineup changes and rigging changes, so every opportunity to really test our speed is very important to us; we take it really seriously and so that's the way we approached it.
"We figured out some stuff we could do better in that time trial, so we had a lot of positive feedback from that race," he continued. "The only way to get real feedback is to commit 100% to it. When it gets harder and harder to breathe, you learn a lot about your crew."
The crew jumped into the four only very recently out of NSR pairs and camp selection, and Guregian thinks they still have a lot to learn.
"We haven't hit the plateau yet," he said. "It really makes me wonder how fast we can get over the next few months. We're still learning a lot every day in practice. Every day we learn how we handle different conditions, different levels of fatigue, all that kind of stuff, so every practice we really do learn something new about ourselves."
Every rower knows the process of getting a crew to gel can be both thrilling and difficult, with some changes and tactics that really work and others that flop dramatically, and instead of twisting everything to fit a preconceived mold, the crew takes a holistic approach to the process, taking the good strokes with the bad as equal partners.
"We do try to note each change we make, even if it doesn't help us," he said. "Let's say I think something is going to help us out, so I say I want to do this drill. If it works then okay, we see something that works; but sometimes it doesn't work, and instead of seeing it being a waste of time because that drill didn't really help us figure out the problem, we just say okay, now we can try something else.
"We went out for a row on Sunday morning, rain was falling, and we were able to work on improving our starts," he continued. "Every practice we discover something. That's the positive. We've gone a lot faster since we started, and we plan on getting a lot faster over the next month or two."
The Pan Am Games begin on July 10; tremendous luck to all the crews getting ready for the Games.
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05/21/2015 11:38:06 PM