Just when you thought that the Youth Nationals, arguably the deepest assemblage of Junior rowing talent in the US during the school year, could not get any more intense and competitive, it did, and did so across the board.
This was the largest Youth Nationals ever, with over 4,000 athletes from 225 clubs and schools racing for national championships in Sarasota on June 8-11. This years' Nationals comprised 38 events--just ten years ago, only 18 events were contested.
Eights
Perhaps the strongest measure of the depth of this year's regatta was the fact that neither of the '22 national champion eights, the boys from Greenwich and the girls from Chicago, made this years' A-Final. This should not detract from the accomplishments of the event winners, the Marin girls and RowAmerica boys, but just goes to show how deep the talent pool is.
"Redemption" was on the minds of the winning Marin girls; in 2022, Marin was in a close battle with Chicago for the win at Nationals, before a devastating crab dropped them to last in the final. This year, Marin lead from the first stroke and held off a strong charge from Greenwich to claim the win.
"Quincy [Stone] and I were both in the first eight last year where we caught the crab and ended up in last place," said four seat Grace DaVita. "For us this year is really just getting back on this course and showing people what we've got, and showing that the crab doesn't define who we are."
"We always have in the back of our minds that the end goal is to be here and to perform here, and I think that this was just a culmination of such a great training season," added bow Maya Popper.
"We kind of imagine ourselves as animals and we're just on the prowl," said DaVita. "You never know what your opponents are doing, just don't stop, you go all gas, no brakes, full steam ahead!"
Marin returned three members from their '22 crew, De Vita, Stone and stroke Joely Cherniss.
After not making the final last year, the RowAmerica boys were firing on all cylinders in Sarasota, winning the time trial and then establishing a strong lead early in the final, winning by almost six seats ahead of Oakland Strokes.
"We didn't have quite the results we wanted in the fall, but that got us really hungry through the winter and through the spring," said stroke Lucas Liow.
"Compared to past years, this team really took ownership of training, practicing and pushing each other," said four seat Pat Moran. "So the credit doesn't only go to the 1V."
"Thanks to all the coaches and everyone who supported us," added 5 seat Rahil Dundon. "I think that the biggest thing, honestly, is just the unreal level of competition within our boathouse, and on the water every day. We're pushing each other every day from the last guy to the very first guy, and I think that's what made the difference."
A trio of clubs placed crews in all four U19 eights finals; Marin, RowAmerica Rye and Newport, and despite the ongoing debate over "Club" versus "Scholastic" teams, the eights weren't limited to strong showings by clubs--Deerfield Academy had eights in both the Men's and Women's Youth Eights A-finals, as did New Trier, a public high school located in the Chicago suburbs.
The New Trier boys made a strong case for the best crew you didn't hear about this year, following up their win at SRAAs with a 5th place finish at Youth Nats.
Marin also won the Boys 2V, repeating from last year, with RowAmerica Rye claiming the Girls 2V.
Fours and Quads
"They're pranking us," said the members of the winning Detroit Boat Club Girls Youth Four, when asked when they thought they could win the event. "Going into the finals, we thought, this is not real."
"Honestly, we just do it for fun," said stroke Eva Sjogrens. "We all really learned to be ourselves and really work hard, but really we don't take it that seriously."
"We've learned to communicate with each other and completely trust each other," added three seat Carly Brown. "We know when to switch on and off."
So, does the crew ever have bad days? "The Detroit River is not very kind," said two seat Olivia Bachert. "Last Saturday we actually sunk our boat! Some days, we swim more than we row! But, it makes us stronger, so it's worth it."
After not racing in the event in '22, the Norcal Boys returned to the Youth Nationals in style, winning their event in commanding fashion ahead of New England powers Belmont Hill and Brunswick. The crew was bolstered by the addition of novice Evan Gold in the two seat, who converted from swimming to rowing in the fall and hit the ground running.
"This is like my two favorite sports, swimming and basketball, all rolled into one," said Gold after the race. "It's four guys just gunning it!"
"We pulled this boat together right before the Regionals on May 5th, and by the time we raced in the finals there, we had had more races than practices together," said bow seat Devin Schindler. "We've been working a long way since then, and it's great to show up here."
The crew was quick to credit the other half of their eight back home for pushing them to achieve their results this week.
In the Men's Quad, Connecticut's Maritime Rowing Club held off a very strong charge from the Los Gatos Rowing Club to claim their 10th title in the event, after finishing 3rd in 2022. The Maritime "B" quad finished third, and the winning crew credited the culture of their club for the result.
"The biggest thing to developing speed in the quad is growing up around fast quads," said stroke Gustav Neubohn. "The guys before us, a lot of them had national championships in the past, built the culture."
"Those guys in our second quad are absolute dogs, they and they push us every single day of practice," added three seat Kevin Crotty. "They never took a day off, always keeping up with us and pushing us. So I think that we do owe a lot of a big portion of success to them."
Maritime landed one of the more fun family two-fers on the day, with Kevin Crotty's younger brother Declan stroking the Maritime U15 4x+ to a win as well.
The Oregon Rowing Unlimited crew of Lauren Garrett, Zola Young, Claire Sopko and Kalista Whildin earned their win in dominating fashion, finishing almost 6 seconds clear of second place Redwood. After the race, their coaches Plamen and Nadia Petrov praised the crew's attitude throughout the year. "This quad is very passionate girls," said Nadia Petrov. "They are very consistent in practice and they love rowing."
"In seven days of rowing, they work eight!" added Plamen. "The relationship between the rowers is very nice, and maybe this is the reason they win."
PNRA/Mercer took the win in the Men's Youth 4-, while Oakland Strokes won the Women's Youth 4-.
Singles, Doubles, Pairs
Oak Neck Academy's Catherine Barry won the national title in the Women's Youth Single, a year after finishing second, and, like most athletes we talked to today, credited her win to the process. "You can't just put the work in at the end, it takes a few years," said Barry, who we last spoke with back in the fall when she won the youth single at the Head of the Charles. "Sometimes, in the middle of winter, when the workouts are hard, it's not the most fun, but our coach [Amadeusz Pietrzak] does it because he loves us and he wants the best for us, and that's how we win."
The Women's Youth Single has been something of a Barry family institution of late, with Catherine's older sister Ella also winning the event in 2021.
Devan Godfrey from the Texas Rowing Club of the Woodlands repeated his '22 win in the event today. "It was a good race, it was hard-fought," said Godfrey after the race. "These other two guys [2nd place finisher Cooper Hagan from SORA and 3rd place Ian O'Riley from Brophy, -eds]rowed really hard, it was a great race all the way to the end."
Godfrey was one of a few athletes who took more than one trip down the course in the A-Finals today, stroking the Woodlands Men's Youth Quad entry to an 8th-place finish just 72 minutes after winning the single, whew.
Also taking two trips down the course were the Newport (CA) duo of Kian Aminian and Travis O'Neil, who crushed the field enroute to winning the Men's Youth Pair, while capturing a bronze medal in the Men's Youth Eight later that morning. When row2k caught up with O'Neil after the racing, he started to explain that they had not had a very good race, before realizing that we were asking about the pairs race, and not the eights race.
"In the pair, we just wanted to stay really long and just strong and sharp as it could be," he said. "We knew we would win, but we want to just go really hard out right off the bat, and get ahead and stay ahead. We've been in the eight all year, so we didn't really row the pair at all until probably about two weeks ago, then we started rowing the pair an hour a day."
Wonks will have noticed that, while O'Neil stroked the Newport eight, Aminian stroked the winning pair.
For Connecticut Boat Club's Caroline Krantz and Annika Nelson, their win today was the culmination of a process that saw them finish at the top of the field a year after placing third. "We went in knowing that we have a strong base, and we just had to trust ourselves throughout the middle 1000," said Nelson. "Even though it's a tight race, especially in the beginning of the race, we just knew that we could pull ahead later. And we really trust each other."
Connecticut has won this event in three out of the past four years, dating back to 2019. "I think there's definitely some pressure to do well," said Nelson. "We talked to a lot of the girls who have raced the pair before and they're so supportive, and they're always really excited for us. Some of the alums would come in the morning practice to train with us, it feels like a really strong community within CBC."
In the doubles, Redwood took the Men's event, while Y-Quad Cities took the Women's.
"We both started rowing eighth grade and all the hard work and dedication we put into this, and all the people who supported us along the way helped us, but even the not-so-good results, that really fueled us," said Redwood stroke seat Charlie Vaksman.
"Both of us had a couple of tough races at Nationals last year, but we used that to motivate us," added bow seat Alex Kawaja.
"I think also having the mindset of, either way, we're hella chill, and having that in the back of our minds really allows us to calm down," said Vaksman.
For the Y-Quad Cities Crew of Alexa Mueller and Olivia Meskan, the long history of strong sculling from their club contributed to their win.
"I think our culture on the boathouse is very positive," said Meskan. "We all look up to the seniors that some of us have been able to be in boats in before, we just look up to them immensely. It's a very positive culture, and the coaches definitely helped to facilitate that. We practice at 5:20 in the morning, we're all there, we're all tired, but it's an unspoken agreement that we're there to do the work and we all get it done."
Young 'Uns
Over half the events at Youth Nationals are in age classes outside of the Varsity/U19 age bracket, and coaches in attendance described the effect of the growing availability of lower age category and inclusive/para racing as a boon for their programs.
"Really, it was all about fun this weekend," said coach Kirsten Anderson of Orlando-based OARS. "All of that just builds for our entire program. The other little kids back home, the even smaller kids, see the success they have, and then those kids want to do more and want to get involved and want to have fun and get out on the water.
"This was the first year we started an eighth grade program and this will now fuel the seventh graders to join the eighth grade program and introduce them to the sport in a fun way. I think you can start them a little bit younger and teach them the routines of it, get the momentum going, and teach them rowing the right way, safe and fun."
Winners in the U17 categories included Sarasota and RowAmerica Rye in the Boys and Girls U17 eights, Long Beach Juniors and Redwood in the Boys and Girls U17 quads, while Marin swept the Boys and Girls U16 eights.
A prime example of how the additional events are opening up new avenues for rowers who might not otherwise get an opportunity to compete at a rowing event at this level is Atlanta Junior Rowing's Max Allemeier. Allemeier, who is blind, won his second consecutive title in the Men's Youth Inclusive Double sculls alongside partner Sam Link. See USRowing's video interview with Allemeier here.
Notes from the Course
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