The first competitive strokes of the 2020 run to the Tokyo Olympics for Team USA took place this week at the USRowing National Selection Regatta in Chula Vista, CA. Three events were contested, the men’s pair, women’s pair, and women’s double, with the highest stakes taking place in the women’s pair.
The selection procedures for the upcoming Olympic squad are quite complicated, but it is clear that today’s winner of the women’s pair would win the opportunity to snag the first seats for Tokyo. Tracy Eisser and Kristine O’Brien won Friday’s A Final and now have the option of racing at either World Cup II or World Cup III, where a top-two finish at either regatta would give them the option of being named as the pair for the Olympics. More on that to come.
The other two events of the day didn’t have explicit selection at stake but offered an early opportunity for rowers and scullers to gauge their speed for the upcoming trial events in March and April, as well as qualify for selection camps if they choose.
The women’s double is a qualified event for Tokyo, and many of the scullers racing at the NSR will likely also be competing at Olympic Trials 2 in April, including today’s winners, Ellen Tomek and Meghan O’Leary. As of now, the men’s pair event has not qualified for the Olympics, so this week’s NSR served as a racing opportunity for the men looking to get selected into the men’s eight and four.
WOMEN’S PAIR
Following Thursday’s semifinals, the A Final for the women’s pair had all the makings of an intense inter-squad brawl, and featured some familiar faces that been pursuing other projects this quadrennial. Heidi Robbins’ last world championships was in 2015 when she stroked the USA W8+ to gold, and here she was racing with Kelsey Reelick who is looking to make her first senior team squad. Then Grace Luczak, whose last international race was the women’s pair final in Rio, raced with Meghan Musnicki.
The Luczak/Musnicki pair set the pace from the start and held an early lead until Eisser and O’Brien moved out and took control of the race by the halfway mark. Behind them saw multiple crews challenge for second place but in the end, it was Megan Kalmoe and Gia Doonan who took second ahead of Luczak/Musnicki and Robbins/Reelick. It was a tight field all the way across with just 2.5 seconds separating second from sixth.
Following the race, Kristine O’Brien, the pride of Massapequa Park NY, said, “We decided to be really aggressive the whole way down the course, and it was a lot of fun. One of the goals we’ve talked about as a team for this regatta was to really develop the whole team to be fast, so it’s pretty cool to see the close times in the final.”
“We’ve come along quickly,” O’Brien said of rowing with Eisser. “We’ve been rowing with different partners pretty much every week during camp, so we just put together our lineups for the NSR about a week and a half ago.”
What’s next for the US women? The squad heads back to Princeton next week to continue training and select the eight and the four by June 3. Eisser and O’Brien will decide if they want to pursue the pair for the upcoming World Cups or stay in the mix for the big boats.
MEN’S PAIR
The men’s pair A Final was led by veterans Austin Hack and Alex Karwoski for the first part of the race. Around the midway point, the pair of Conor Harrity and Liam Corrigan started reeling in the leaders and would go on to win by around half a second. Behind them was a tight bunch of three more Training Center pairs lead by Tom Peszek and Nick Mead.
“We knew it was going to be some tight racing, and Liam and I just set out to stay internal for the first 500 since we knew some of the other crews would jump us off the line,” Harrity said following the final. “We had a lot of faith in our base rhythm and started coming back on the lead pair around the 1500, and just gave it a good full race.”
One theme to emerge out of the regatta was the overall competitiveness and intensity of both the pairs events, and Harrity summed it up well, saying, “We do a lot of racing in Oakland and we’ve done a lot while we’ve been down here, and it’s always pretty tight. It’s going to be exciting when we head into eight and four selection later on.”
Harrity and Corrigan have some history as both were recently teammates at Harvard. “We have been in several boats together at Harvard over my four years,” Harrity added. “We came in from there and that gave us a good foundation, and we found a pretty good rhythm early on in the month of February. We just took that throughout the entire camp here, and it worked out well today.”
The US men now head back to Oakland for big boat training and selection with a potential World Cup trip to test speed prior to the eight and four being named on June 3.
WOMEN’S DOUBLE
While both pairs events were hotly contested the down the whole 2000 meters, the women’s double was dominated by Meghan O’Leary and Ellen Tomek, leading from the start and winning by six seconds over Taylor Goetzinger and Michalina Fili.
“We knew it was going to be fast racing," added Tomek. "We've been working on our start and getting off the line a little quicker. We thought we executed that well and then the goal was just to keep pushing throughout the rest of the race, and I think we executed that too. We're happy and this is just a good step for us in the right direction towards trials."
This week’s NSR was a first step in building up to trials in April.
“We have limited opportunities to race, so this was a great opportunity to learn and come together,” said O’Leary following the race. “We’ve been working on a lot over the last few months waiting for selection to start, so getting to go side by side with some fast boats has been great. Trials is going to be super-fast, so we want to make sure we’re sharp and ready to go in April.”
Tomek and O’Leary are coming off an injury plagued 2019 season that saw them lose the W2x trial for the first time since 2013. They didn’t take the disappointment lying down though and took the time to make some changes.
“We spent the summer and fall tweaking some things," Tomek said. "We did some speed testing and rough water testing in different hulls and found we can handle things better in the Filippi we raced here. We have a new coach and made some changes to our training plan. We’ve just been making sure we’re staying healthy and fit and that’s going to be the focus for the next six weeks as well.”
USA QUALIFICATION UPDATE
WOMEN’S SINGLE
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION - Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT – Olympic Trials I, March 16-21 in Sarasota, FL. Winner named as women’s single for Tokyo Olympics
MEN’S SINGLE
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Not Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT – Olympic Trials I, March 16-21 in Sarasota, FL. Winner must race at Final Olympic Qualification Regatta, May 17-19 in Lucerne, SUI and finish in the top 2.
WOMEN’S PAIR
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT – Eisser and O’Brien must decide if they want to race the pair at World Cup II or World Cup III, then a top 2 placing at either event would give the pair the opportunity to name themselves as the women’s pair for Tokyo Olympics. If they decline or fail to qualify, the event will be trialed at Olympic Trials III, June 5-7 in West Windsor, NJ. The winner there would be named as the pair for Tokyo Olympics.
MEN’S PAIR
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Not Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT - Olympic Trials II, April 13-18 in Sarasota, FL. Winner must race at Final Olympic Qualification Regatta, May 17-19 in Lucerne, SUI and finish in the top 2.
WOMEN’S DOUBLE
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT - Olympic Trials II, April 13-18 in Sarasota, FL. Winner named as women’s double for Tokyo Olympics
MEN’S DOUBLE
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Not Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT - Olympic Trials II, April 13-18 in Sarasota, FL. Winner must race at Final Olympic Qualification Regatta, May 17-19 in Lucerne, SUI and finish in the top 2.
WOMEN’S LIGHTWEIGHT DOUBLE
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Not Qualfied
-WHAT’S NEXT - Olympic Trials I, March 16-21 in Sarasota, FL. Winner must race at Final Olympic Qualification Regatta, May 17-19 in Lucerne, SUI and finish in the top 2.
MEN’S LIGHTWEIGHT DOUBLE
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Not Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT - Olympic Trials I, March 16-21 in Sarasota, FL. Winner must race at Final Olympic Qualification Regatta, May 17-19 in Lucerne, SUI and finish in the top 2.
WOMEN’S FOUR
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT – Camp selected boat out of Princeton Training Center. Crew named by June 3.
MEN’S FOUR
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT - Camp selected boat out of Oakland Training Center. Crew named by June 3.
WOMEN’S QUAD
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT - Camp selected boat out of Princeton Training Center. Crew named by June 3.
MEN’S QUAD
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Not Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT - Olympic Trials II, April 13-18 in Sarasota, FL. Winner must race at Final Olympic Qualification Regatta, May 17-19 in Lucerne, SUI and finish in the top 2.
WOMEN’S EIGHT
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT - Camp selected boat out of Princeton Training Center. Crew named by June 3.
MEN’S EIGHT
-OLYMPIC QUALIFICATION – Qualified
-WHAT’S NEXT - Camp selected boat out of Oakland Training Center. Crew named by June 3.
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: