row2k leaves for Henley this evening; here is a quick look at this year's regatta, with a bias toward a North American perspective.
The post-Olympic Henley can be an interesting one; the gaggle of new faces in the international crews makes racing somewhat less predictable, and in many cases those athletes are in the midst of selection, making their Henley performance all the more critical. With over 30 crews entered in the 2005 Henley Royal Regatta, and a heap of folks rowing in Oxford and Cambridge crews, the US and Canada are very well represented this year. Add to this a solid international presence, and the regatta should provide some blistering head-to-head racing for those folks attending the regatta who concern themselves with things like rowing.
The Grand Challenge is mostly an international affair as per usual; the German and British eights got the seeds, with the Czechs taking the first shot at the Brits, and the Oxford crew getting bumped up from the Ladies due to their Boat Race win. However, the Oxford crew is not rowing intact, with Barney Williams at least rowing in the pair.
The British fans and press will be out to watch the the GB men's four, which was all but coronated and declared the greatest ever after winning a single World Cup event. The crew's main competition will likely come from the newly minted Canadian men's four. Crews from Oz and the Czech Republic will make things even more interesting.
After their B crew qualified last Friday, Malvern has a couple crews rowing quads this year. Yale's women are doing their quadrennial trip to the HRR to cap off their Sprints win; I believe the crew is rowing intact. They will face a U23 crew from the Ukraine, as well as a British development crew.
In the Diamonds, Wyatt Allen earned a seeded spot, and will try to be the first US sculler to take the cup since Aquil Abdullah's win in 2000. No US sculler is entered in the women's single to defend Cindy Bishop's 04 win; this year's event will be a tough one, with two Aussie entries, Canada lightweight Fiona Milne, two GB entries, and none short of Neykova rounding out the five entries. (Note that I heard that Debbie Flood may scratch to row a double the following weekend at Lucerne, which would cut the field to four entries.)
In the Ladies Plate, a very mixed and international entry list includes USC, Stanford, a Harvard crew (i believe this is the lightweights - if so, it's too bad we won't see a Harvard-Yale-Cornell rematch in the Temple), Cambridge, and a Brown alumni boat that I believe includes a bunch of the 90s Brown alums who did time in US team crews.
Speaking of Brown alums, Eric Winters and Luke McGee are entered in the Double Sculls.
The PE has a heap of North American crews, including Upper Canada College, Choate, Brunswick School, and seeded crews St. Xavier and St. Joseph's. Green Lake is attending, but as a club is apparently ineligible for the PE, and is racing in the Thames Cup.
In the pair, South Africans Di Clementé and Cech will defend their title against Canadians Barney Williams and Scott Frandsen racing under the Oxford flag, the GB pair Josh West and Kieran West, and Danish lightweights Ebert and Helleberg.
The Canadian lightweights will appear in the Queen Mother 4x race. The Student coxed four includes crews from Tulane, Trinity, Harvard, and Upper Arlington, and the Maine RA races in the Brittania.
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