Here's your weekly row2k round up of everything that went down in the rowing world, outside of Seattle, where the booms were back as UW took on the GB Women and Dutch Men and where it appears that the UW Golf team can row!

Times from tonight's Twilight Sprints:

Women
Great Britain 1:50.3
UW Purple 1:51.6
UW Golf 1:54.7

Men
Netherlands 1:38.7
UW 2V8+ 1:40.5
UW V8+ 1:40.8#RowingU x #RowTownUSA x #WindermereCup

— Washington Rowing (@UW_Rowing) May 7, 2022

Good thing the "edit" button is coming soon.

2nd Best Venue of the Week

Kidding about typos aside, racing in Montlake Cut is hard to top, but the "Great Adirondack Boat Race" gets our vote for next best spot this week:

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Especially when most other venues looked like this, at Worcester for the NIRC racing, or worse this weekend:

Time for Champ Camp

The NIRC was the end of the "pre-NCAAs season" for the heap of D3 schools who have punched their tickets to the 2022 NCAAs, including Wellesley, who has been the division's #1 team all year and is now off to "Champ Camp" ahead of the trip to NCAAs:

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Wellesley did lose a close one in Sunday's Final in the 1V to Ithaca College, who came out of Lane 1 with a gutsy race to win the NIRC. IC was already NCAA-bound as the Liberty League champion from a week before, and Wellesley had qualifies as the NEWMAC champ but, in a close third, Bates claimed the NESCAC bid. All three will rendezvous in Sarasota later this month to run that final again and determine the team champion. Check out the full list of NCAA D3 bids to see the entire field, including the schools that grabbed At-Large bids at the end of the NIRC racing: Tufts, WPI, and Williams.

D3 IRA Championship Filling Up

The 2022 IRA will host the first-ever D3 Men's National Championship, and #1 ranked Williams won gold and the NESCAC crown to book their ticket to this first dance. Tufts also announced that they received one of the At-Large bids that will round out the 7 boat field for the inaugural championship.

Men's Rowing Receives Berth Into First-Ever IRA DIII National Championship https://t.co/Q0KvQiqXQE

— IRA Rowing Champs (@IRARowingChamps) May 9, 2022

The full list of schools earning IRA D3 bids is due out later today, and watch row2k in the run-up to the IRA for a preview of the new event and what it means for D3 Men's Rowing.

So Much for (Just) May Flowers

Weather hit back this weekend, despite the turn of the calendar page:

Elsewhere, some racing was cancelled outright: Cities in Philadelphia after just a handful of Saturday races, Founders Day on Lake Waramaug after some shorted-course morning heats, prep racing on Mercer Lake, and the Central Youth Championship awarded its medals based on its Saturday time trials when all of Sunday was scrubbed out in OKC.

Margins Getting Super-Tight

Where racing did happen, we saw--from the NIRC Finals to high school racing--that crews are finding it harder and harder to walk away from determined opponents.

That included the week-long back and forth at NSR 2 in the W2x--openweights Kara Kohler and Sophia Vitas versus lightweights Sophia Luwis and Audrey Boerson--which came right down to the wire in Friday's final, with Kohler and Vitas taking the win and booking a ticket to the Poznan World Cup:

On the high school side, just 0.2 apiece separated B-CC from Gonzaga and then Wilson in the Men's V8 at the WMIRA Championships, while the 0.7 seconds between 4th and 7th in the Youth Men's 8+ at the Southwest Youth Championship put almost the whole field in the photo finish behind winner Newport and medalists Marin and Long Beach.

So, Time to Pull up A Seat

And make sure you have a good way to watch all the close races this Championship Season:

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Team USA Went to The White House

Yep, the Olympians from Tokyo 202One went to Washington...

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...tho it was pretty much the only thing featured on USRowing social media channels last week, despite the crucial NSR 2 racing happening in Princeton at the same time - but we suppose it is good to know how many days are left until Youth Nationals.

Again, We Know, But . . .

Appearance by the Mercer "convocation" this week, who were keeping an eye on the NSR proceedings atop the power towers:

If the avians are your thing, check out the soaring pics that were "cut for time" from last week's recap: the wings were out above both Carnegie and Natoma.

'Always Know Where the Camera Is' of the Week

Prime Start Dock Shot Season is Here

Always Fun to 'Winst' in Seattle

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Once A Pair, Always a KiwiPair

Hamish is getting in on rooting for Eric:

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Which makes us wonder: what is the international rate for doing the "Text ERIC to 3333" thing?

We Know You Need One Hair Pic

So here you go--in his defense, this was after the Open Ocean Regatta (where it was perfectly okay for things to be windy):

No Spring Is Complete Without...

...coxswains racing! Swipe right for epic racing footage:

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Well raced, Cornell 125s!

Cox 8+ Not the Only New Event

Meet the "Very Mixed 8+" from Amoskeag Crew's results this weekend:

Lastly, A 'Don't See This Often'

If ever:

** STOLEN - PLEASE SHARE **
The @DoncasterRC Ford Tipper Truck, registration FG15 KWK was stolen last night from Mt Pleasant Hotel Doncaster.
It was fully loaded with riggers and seats from junior boats which means all our junior boats are out of action. #Rowing #Doncaster pic.twitter.com/zNEo8WhIp5

— Doncaster Rowing Club (@DoncasterRC) May 10, 2022

Here's hoping everything is found and comes back--and if it does, you'll here about it in the row2k recap.

The row2k Top Results of the Week

• The NIRC Men's 8 Final qualified 4 schools in total for the IRA: Williams (1st), Bates (4th) and Tufts (6th) earning D3 bids, while MIT (2nd) edged Marist by .017 to claim the only D1 bid on offer at the NIRC Regatta on Sunday. Marist and Hobart, a D3 school that annually declares for the D1 event, will have to wait on possible At-Large bids from the IRA selectors.
• Michigan, was the NIRC's top ACRA finisher, winning the Petite after Bates nudged them from the Grand Final in the heat.
• HS crews are starting to win 2022's state titles: Wilson's Women & B-CC's Men took the V8's at WMIRA Championship, while the TN/GA State titles went to McCallie's Men and Baylor School's Women.
• and Regional Champs are emerging in the Youth 8's ahead of Nationals in June: Newport's Men and Marin's Women won out at the Southwest Youth Championship, while Dallas United swept both the Women's and Men's Eights at the Central Youth Championship.

Check out these items you may have missed this past week:

• row2k turned 25 on May 7th, complete with b-day logo update
• Our full slate of reports from all four days of NSR 2: heats, reps in the W2x, semis, and finals.
• USRowing's post-NSR announcement of the athletes coaches and selectors invited to the first 2022 National Team Selection Camps
• the 5/8 edition of row2k’s Best of Instagram: Nails, White House Olympian Day, Stand and Shove, and more.
• and the most read news link this past week? Well, it was this bit: UCLA rowing places last in every race at Longhorn Invitational which may be entirely down to the brutal title, a classic of hard-hitting student newspapering -- allow us to offer some free pro-tips on alternate takes:
  UCLA Finishes Strong in Tough Field
  UCLA Shows Improvement Against #1 Texas
  UCLA Goes Down Fighting Against Higher-Ranked Teams, or even
  UCLA Uses Tough Racing to Prep for Pac-12 Championship