For most of the crews competing in the Junior and Under 23 World Championship Trials this week on Mercer Lake, Monday morning was about performing well enough in time trials to set up for the racing to come. But for three uncontested crews, the selection to the U23 squad that will race in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, this summer was completed as soon as they crossed the finish line.
Racing in an event without competition can be viewed as either a step that just must be completed, or it can be taken as a challenge to prove that a crew has the speed and ability to compete in a world championship.
row2km took some time after racing Monday morning to talk with some of the athletes who rowed to a place on the 2017 U.S. Under 23 Team to see how their crews came together and how they approached the racing.
Men's Coxed Four - Seattle Area Rowing Association
Arne Landboe: "Obviously, there are no other boats to compete against, but we know our time standard and the goals we want to set in Plovdiv, so we really go off percentages. Even though it's a one boat race, there are other boats here this week looking for their goal times, so we're trying to be the fastest boat relative to our own event's world record that we can be out here today.
Evan Olsen: "This is basically a composite crew. We had a bunch of guys that really wanted to do this and this year it came together. We did a lot of last minute seat racing and this boat really came together. That start we did was actually the first start that we did together and it was really just a good piece from start to finish. It's only going to get better from here."
Lightweight Men's Four - Princeton National Rowing Association
Vincent LaMonte: "We came together after coach Skip Kielt held a selection camp for a four and a pair with the goal of taking two boats to trials. We ran selection as a squad to see what crews we could put together with the highest chance of making two A finals at the world championships, and we had a good race and we were happy with the it. We set a time standard and we put together a good race and we're very happy with it.
"A lot of races are just about racing your own race and trying to stay internal and it's kind of just a heightened sense of that throughout the race. It just takes a little bit more motivation, especially in the coxless boats where there isn't a coxswain to help push you through it. So, we just had to push throughout the race, and that's basically how it went."
Men's Quad - California Rowing Club
Jacob Plihal: "We came together after we had a camp at the California Rowing Club. There were a couple of guys that came down after IRAs, and a couple of single scullers, and we put the quad together after doing some seat racing and seeing who fit best in the lineup. We've just been training a few days and came out here to race.
"It was just a straight final and because it was just us we agreed we were going to take it smooth off the start and kind of just go on pace the whole way with a little lift at the end. Everyone was calm and collected so it wasn't stressful. From here we'll spend a week up in Boston training, and then we fly to Germany and train there for about a week and a half and then head to Plovdiv."
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