A very loaded Tuesday of racing in Lucerne ended up being one of the best days in recent memory for USRowing, with all three crews racing in the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta winning their respective A Finals. A total of fifteen US athletes punched their tickets to London today in the Men’s Eight, Lightweight Men’s Four, and Women’s Double. These are the first seats on team USA to be locked in, with four veteran of the Beijing Olympics joined by eleven Olympic first timers.
Women’s Double
The women’s double of Sarah Trowbridge and Margot Shumway got the party started with a wire to wire victory over the Dutch to grab one of the two available qualification spots. The crew was never under any real threat of not qualifying - but that’s not to say it was an easy race. The double executed their full race plan and while clearly relieved and excited after crossing the finish line, they had both definitely found the bottom of the well in the last 500 meters.
“It was pretty solid, from start to finish,” said Shumway after the race. “What we did was set a goal for ourselves, and then we marched down the course to accomplish that goal.”
This was the first international race for this combination, as the USA W2x has been in constant flux since Beijing. This particular combo finished third at NSR II and was selected to compete in Lucerne when the top two finishers declined the double to try for the quad. “It’s been a long year,” added Trowbridge. “It just feels good to know where we’re going and what we have to do for the first time in a long while.”
Lightweight Men’s Four
The closest and perhaps most unexpected win of the day came from the Lightweight Men’s Four of Robin Prendes, Nick La Cava, Will Newell, and Anthony Fahden. The crew won by about a foot over the hard-charging Dutch. The Americans broke out away from a tightly bunched field in the third 500 to build the lead they would hold to the line.
“We knew we had a strong base, so our whole plan was not to get dropped in the start,” said Prendes. “Since we're a new crew, we're definitely lacking racing experience, so as long as we were with the pack at the start, we knew our base would come through. Coming into the 1250-1500, we were ahead, and it was just maintaining it and then racing it in.”
It was an interesting regatta to say the least for the crew, who had some very fast crews to overcome to grab a top two spot and qualify for London. The Dutch recently finished fourth at World Cup I and the talented Kiwi crew finished seventh there as well. Then there was the issue with their racing shell. Earlier in the week their hull got blown off their rack in a thunderstorm and broke in half along the keel. It took the coaching staff about 24 hours of tracking down every Empacher within a 500 kilometer radius to find an identical shell for them to race, finally borrowing one from the Australian women.
This lineup is a new combination in the event and went through a tough selection process to win seats in the boat. “We had a couple good months of training together,” said 3-seat La Cava. “I think the biggest thing was that we had a lot of really good guys in the camp with us, and Volp [US coach Bryan Volpenhein] did a really good job this year, so having a really good group and a good coach like that really makes a big difference.”
Men’s Eight
Much has been written about the US men’s eight troubles during this quadrennial, but this particular crew squashed all doubt they wouldn’t qualify for London with a dominating first thousand meters in their final against New Zealand and France. With only one to qualify, this lean and long crew pushed out an open water lead early in the race and fought off the frantic Kiwi’s in the last 500 to win by four seconds.
“It was a solid effort all around,” said 2-seat Will Miller. “We got off well and got a little bit of a lead, and New Zealand just kept fighting all the way to the end. It was good to fight them, and we hope to keep on rolling.”
The celebrating by the eight was much more subdued than most of the other crews that had qualified in earlier in the day (including several champagne celebrations, like this one by Dutch lightweights, and this full sequence in the women's eight- watch the AUS rower at far right).
Coxswain Zach Vlahos added, “This was phase one of the main goal. No one was looking past today; the boat was named and all the focus was on today, just to win this one race. Obviously there was a lot of pressure to win today, and we're happy to get it done and are ready to go back home to California and keep training.”
The crew quickly de-rigged their boat and are already on their way back to Berkeley to get ready for their next race; London.
QUALIFIED CREWS – TUESDAY
Women’s Pair – GER, ARG
Men’s Pair – FRA, POL
Women’s Double – USA, NED
Men’s Four – CZE, ROU
Lightweight Women’s Double – GER, NED
Lightweight Men’s Four – USA, NED
Women’s Quad – POL
Men’s Quad – EST, FRA
Women’s Eight – AUS, GER
Men’s Eight - USA
Comments | Log in to comment |
There are no Comments yet
|
row2k's Olympics coverage is brought to you by:
row2k's Olympics coverage is brought to you by: