Two spots on the 2004 United States Olympic Rowing Team are on the line beginning Thursday at the 2004 BearingPoint Rowing World Cup Regatta in Munich, Germany. While the United States will have 12 crews competing at the event, the lightweight womens double sculls and mens double sculls tandems can lock up their Olympic berths by finishing in the top four.
While the Olympic team selection process for rowing is complicated, the lightweight womens double sculls duo of Stacey Borgman (Homer, Alaska) and Sarah Hirst (Oak Ridge, Tenn.) and the mens double sculls tandem of Henry Nuzum (Chapel Hill, N.C.) and Aquil Abdullah (Washington, D.C.) will be racing for a spot on the Olympic team after winning their events at USRowings National Selection Regatta 2 in April in West Windsor, N.J. If the two crews finish in the top four, then they make the team without further selection. If they do not finish in the top four, the two events will be opened up to the second set of Olympic Trials, which will be held June 26-July 1 in West Windsor.
Borgman and Hirst will be facing 18 other crews in Munich including Germanys Daniela Reimer and Claudia Blasberg, who won the world cup stop in Poznan, Poland, in April. The Netherlands, Denmark, and both Chinese crews, which finished second, fifth, sixth, and seventh in Poznan, respectively, also are scheduled to compete, as is the talented Canadian crew. Romania and Poland, which finished third and fourth in Poznan, will be skipping the event.
Nuzum and Abdullah will face 19 other crews in the mens double sculls. Germanys Rene Bertram and Christian Schreiber won the race in Poznan, with Estonia and Great Britain claiming the silver and bronze medals, respectively. All three crews will be racing again in Munich. However, the field in Poland did not include four of the worlds top mens double sculls tandems. Current world champions Sebastien Vieilledent and Adrien Hardy of France are scheduled to compete in Munich, as is the Italian crew of two-time Olympian Alessio Sartori and three-time Olympian Rossano Galtarossa. Sartori and Galtarossa won silver at last years world championships. Last years world championships bronze medailists, Milan Dolecek and Ondrej Synek of the Czech Republic, also will hit the world cup circuit for the first time this year, as will defending Olympic champions and world record holders Iztok Cop and Luka Spik of Slovenia.
For the other 10 U.S. crews competing in Munich, the event serves as a chance to test their speed and continue the selection process as the Olympics loom less than three months away.
The U.S. has three entries in the 11-crew womens pair field. The lineups of Lianne Nelson (Seattle, Wash.) and Caryn Davies (Ithaca, N.Y.), Maite Urtasun (Riverside, N.J.) and Liane Malcos (Carlisle, Mass.), and Kate MacKenzie (Novi, Mich.) and Katie Hammes (La Crosse, Wis.) are scheduled to compete. Great Britains Cath Bishop and Katherine Grainger, the defending world champions, finished second to the Romanian crew last month in Poznan, while Germanys Maren Derlien and Sandra Goldbach claimed the bronze medal. Both Great Britain and Germany will be racing in Munich, while Romania is not. Canadas Buffy Williams and Darcy Marquardt, who raced in the eight last year, will be racing in their first world cup event of the season.
Several of the women competing in the pairs also will race in the womens eight. The five-boat field includes Canada, China, Germany and the Netherlands in addition to the United States. Germany, the defending world champion, is coming off of a victory in Poland. The U.S. crew will consist of coxswain Mary Whipple (Sacramento, Calif.), Nelson, Davies, Laurel Korholz (La Jolla, Calif.), Anna Mickelson (Bellevue, Wash.), Alison Cox (Turlock, Calif.), Kate Johnson (Portland, Ore.), Sam Magee (Simsbury, Conn.), and Megan Dirkmaat (San Jose, Calif.).
The womens quadruple sculls crew of Danika Holbrook (Durham, N.H.), Kelly Salchow (Cincinnati, Ohio), Michelle Guerette (Bristol, Conn.), and Hilary Gehman (Wolfeboro, N.H.) will be racing against seven other boats including Great Britain, which won the race in Poznan. Several countries are making their season debuts and are testing out new lineups in Munich including Belarus and Germany, which won the silver and bronze medals, respectively, at last years world championships.
The U.S. womens quad also will break down into two double sculls and race in that event as well. Salchow and Gehman will race one double, while Harris and Guerette will race the other. The field of 15 includes four countries Germany, Great Britain, France and Hungary that raced in Poznan, as well as the defending world champions from New Zealand, Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell. The Evers-Swindell sisters will be racing in their first world cup of the season.
Dana Peirce (Richmond, Va.) will be making her international debut as a single sculler as she continues to train following a second-place finish in the double sculls at the U.S. Olympic Trials. While world champion Rumyana Neykova of Bulgaria and Poznan world cup winner Kathrin Rutschow-Stomporowski of Germany are not scheduled to compete, the 12-boat field does include two-time Olympic champion Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus and the Czech Republics Mirka Knapkova.
With the exception of the mens double sculls, the U.S. men will only be competing in lightweight events in Munich. With the selection process for the lightweight mens four in full swing, USRowing has entered one crew in both the lightweight mens four and the lightweight mens pair. The lightweight mens four of Mike Altman, Paul Teti (Upper Darby, Pa.), Matt Smith (Woodbridge, Va.), and Pat Todd (Cincinnati, Ohio) will face 13 other crews in Munich. The field includes the defending world champions from Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, and Canada, among others.
Steve Warner (Livonia, Mich.) and Simon Carcagno (Pennington, N.J.) will race in the lightweight mens pair. The duo will face nine other crews.
A total of 588 athletes (409 men and 179 women) from 37 countries are scheduled to race in Munich. Racing begins Thursday and concludes with finals on Saturday.