Barely 6 weeks after the first set of US Olympic trials, which nominated Kara Kohler to the Olympic team and earned another half-dozen US crews the right to race for Olympic qualification at Lucerne next month, six events are being contested at Mercer Country Park in NJ to send the Women's Double and three Para events directly to Tokyo, while the Men's Pair and Men's Quad still face qualification in Lucerne as well.
Nominally the Olympic & Paralympic Trials II are for six events, but three events have crews rowing unopposed (Men's & Women's PR1 1x, Men's 2-), so the regatta has a smaller footprint.
Racing today took place on a classic 'not quite truly awful' spring morning, with temps of 45 degrees, varying between drizzle and rain, and a cross headwind making for a trifecta of long-ish races, slightly bouncy rides, and steering calls coming from the lanes.
Women's Double
A number of familiar faces in women's sculling are taking trips down the course here again this week, and the depth of the US women's athlete pool is on full display. It's a shark pit, for sure.
As a rough outline, the storylines in the women's double are this: Meghan O'Leary and Ellen Tomek have been the predominant US Women's Double, representing the US at Worlds since 2013, finishing 2nd in 2017 and 3rd in 2018, as well as finishing 6th at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
However, in 2019, injury and illness derailed O'Leary and Tomek's campaign, and at the national team trials that year, Tomek and O'Leary fell to the new combination of 2016 USA W1x Dr. Gevvie Stone and Cicely Madden, who in turn went on to finish 5th at the Worlds in Linz, which qualified the boat for Tokyo for the US.
These two doubles looked poised for a showdown going into 2020, but then the shutdown and Olympic postponement happened, and everyone and everything was scrambled. At the Olympic Trials I a few weeks ago, Stone finished just behind Kara Kohler in the W1x, and so recalibrated her sights back into qualifying for Tokyo in the 2x.
But not with Madden. The emergence of a strong Boston-based sculling group, and one that Stone credited with keeping her on track and honest in the single, meant that "same seats" would not necessarily be a given. Kristina Wagner finished 3rd at the Olympic singles trials behind Stone, with Stone's Boston teammate Maggie Fellows finishing 4th.
Madden, Stone's erstwhile partner, just lost out to Alie Rusher (also out of the Boston group) in the B-Final of the event for 6th place; these results meant that a reshuffle of doubles seatings was likely to happen in Boston.
In today's opening time trial, the new-look Boston doubles acquitted themselves well, although perhaps not in the most expected order. Madden and Fellows paced the field to take pole position, less than half a second ahead of the combination of Jeni Forbes and Sophia Vitas, the 7th and 8th place finishers at the Singles trials.
The new combination of Stone and Wagner finished third, ahead of Tomek & O'Leary. Few of the competitors were reading too much into the days results; with a full slate of heats, reps, semis and Friday's final still to go, everyone here realizes that it will take more than one good race to make the Olympic team.
"This is likely the largest and most competitive field of women's doubles that USRowing has ever seen for an Olympic Trials, which is really exciting for U.S. women's sculling," said O'Leary. "It was great to get our first trip down the course in over a year without racing. Ellen and I are looking forward to fast racing and seeing what we can do this week."
"The time trial is a good opportunity to get back on the race course again, and we are looking forward to the next races to come," said Madden. "After a year of COVID-19, it is great to be back in team boats again. We are grateful for the opportunity to race at trials safely."
"It was a fine start, and we're excited to race tomorrow," added Stone, echoing those sentiments.
For the surprising second place combination of Jeni Forbes and Sophia Vitas, simplicity has been the key. "We've been mostly working on the basics and keeping everything as simple as possible," said Jeni Forbes. "It also certainly helps that Hilary [Gehman, USWNT coach - eds]and the training group here have been really welcoming and fantastic to work with. Looking forward to the rest of the week."
Olympic trials winners in the Lightweight Women's Double, Michelle Sechser and Molly Reckford are competing in the Olympic Trials this week as an opportunity to gain speed and racing experience before they head to Europe in May for the Final Olympic Qualification regatta. Sechser & Reckford did well, finishing 6th in the time trial to open the regatta. From what we saw at practice on Friday, they may be training through this week's racing.
Men's Quad
With the US not fielding an Olympic Men's Quad since London in 2012, you could say that any extra racing or speed would help get the US Men there; the top two finishers in today's time trial were less than 2 seconds apart, so we can expect tight racing for the remainder of the week.
The six boats entered in the Men's Quad will race two heats and a rep to advance four crews to Friday's final. The winning crew will also be required to qualify the crew for Tokyo via the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in May, in Lucerne.
The Penn AC/Schuylkill Navy combination of Charles Anderson, Justin Keen, Eliot Putnam and Sorin Koszyk was the fastest crew down the course in the event today, finishing just about 1.5 seconds ahead of the 2nd place USTC crew.
"The athletes had been looking forward to racing for some time now, and I thought that today they handled the conditions well and were able to row a clean piece to start the event," said Skip Kielt, coach of the USTC-Oakland entry of Andrew Gaard, Mike Knippen, Spencer Furey and Oliver Bub, who finished second.
"We've kept it simple; quality strokes and consistent training," said Kielt. "The athletes have been focused on making improvements day to day. Given the previous year, this is a good opportunity for them to line up next to other crews and race.
"The boat was finalized just two weeks ago. Most of the crew, with the exception of Mike Knippen, is new to the quad. We expect over time that they will become more comfortable sculling. They are a strong group of young athletes that we are excited to continue to develop. Overall they are focused on improving through the week."
PR2 Mix2x
Two boats contested the time trial of the PR2 Mix2x adaptive boat class, for athletes who have trunk and arm movement but who are unable to use their legs. Russell Gernaat & Laura Goodkind, reprising their lineup from 2019, when they finished 8th at the World Championships, took this one easily. Both crews will race again for the Paralympic berth on Thursday.
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