The record entries at the now 6 day Henley Royal Regatta--739 total, 172 from overseas--also means an epic day of "Required to Qualify" crews facing off against the clock: more than half the crews entered will need to survive the Qualifying Races on Friday even to make it into the Draw held on Saturday.
What does that look like? Well, the Temple Challenge Cup--which has the most US entries (9)--will need to cut down to just 32 drawn crews, from 75. And, if that seems steep, consider that the Junior Men's Quads in the Fawley needs to get down to 24 from 66, so nearly two-thirds of the entries will watch the side-by-side racing from the banks next week.
Luckily--and based of course on results and resumes--the nine US colleges in the Temple are all selected and uninvolved in Friday's race, which will pit fully 50 Temple aspirants against each other for just 7 spots.
The US Team crews in the heavily subscribed races--the Men's and Women's Light Doubles and Kara Kohler in the Princess Royal Singles event--were also pre-selected and do not have to qualify. Same for all the US schools with Junior Men's Eights in the Princess Elizabeth and all US University crews in the Ladies Plate and the new-since-2021 Island Challenge Cup for Women's 8s.
The Brown and Cal Women racing in the Princess Grace Quad event and the Brown Women racing the Town Challenge Women's 4- were not so lucky. Since there are no "student" events for women apart from eights (the Island Challenge), those crews will have to earn a spot in the draw for those Open events via the time trial on Friday.
A number of Junior crews outside of the PE Cup did get caught up in the Qualifying, most notably the SRAA champs from Winter Park High School in the Prince Phillip event for Junior Women's Eights. The Four from Brooks School racing "up" in the Prince Albert event for college fours with will also have to qualify, as will the Junior Men's quads from Green Lake and Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club in the aforementioned Fawley Challenge Cup and Green Lake's Junior Women's Quad.
Most of the rest of the US crews racing to make it into the regatta proper are small boats and scullers from the larger college teams, or crews like the Women's Double from Redwood Scullers--a crew that came second in the U23 trials last week with the US's new U19 champ, Meena Baher aboard--which is racing "up" in the absence of a student or junior double event.
Some tough racing ahead, but tremendous luck to everyone against both the clock and the other entries fighting for a spot in the draw.
Below is list of the Americans in the Qualifying Races, listed in the order they will race, and the odds they are up against -- you can pore through the list of all 400+ crews trialling here, if you haven't already.
The full List of Entries can be found here.
Thames Club Men’s 8s - 24 crews for 2 spots
Princess Grace Women’s Quads - 8 crews for 5 spots
Silver Goblets & Nickalls Men’s Pairs - 10 crews for 4 spots
Hambledon Women’s Pairs - 6 crews for 3 spots
Diamond Challenge Sculls Men’s 1x - 27 scullers for 2 spots
Wyfold Men’s Fours - 19 crews for 6 spots
Stonor Women’s Doubles - 12 crews for 3 spots
Princess Royal Women's 1x - 12 scullers for 5 spots
Double Sculls Men's 2x - 16 crews for 3 spots
Town Challenge Women's Fours - 8 crews for 2 spots
Prince Albert Men's Four with - 27 crews for 2 spots
Prince Philip Junior Women's Eights - 14 crews for 3 spots
Fawley Junior Men's Quads - 44 crews for 3 spots
Diamond Jubilee Junior Women's Quads - 31 crews for 5 spots
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