Ottensheim, Austria---The Senior & Junior World Championships opened this morning amid gray skies and seasonably cool conditions. For the competitors, it probably felt more like October on the Charles than summer on Danube River. Because it is an Olympic year, non-Olympic Senior events are contested along with the usual slate of Junior World Championship races. Three US crews, the junior men's eight, the senior lighweight men's eight, and the senior women's four, won their respective heats. Four other crews, the senior men's coxed pair, the senior men's and women's lighweight singles, and the senior men's lightweight pair also avoided the reps. The men's and women's senior lightweight quads as well as the junior men's and women's quads will have to race in the reps on Wednesday to advance.
One boat that will be watched very closely in this championship is the US Lightweight Men's Eight. Coach John Parker decided to enter this event with a crew that includes all four rowers from the Olympic straight four. Tom Paradiso, Will Daly, Pat Todd, and Mike Altman will go straight to Beijing after the regatta. They will have plenty of competition in Austria, as the event is once again filled with the perennial lightweight powers, including Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and Denmark. Everything is looking good so far as the US light eight, which also included Matt Muffelman, Colin Farrell, Andrew Bolton and Simon Carcagno, won their qualifying heat going away in a quick 5:43.77. The crew used a blistering second 500 to storm ahead of Italy and Germany and capture a place in the final on Sunday. It looked like all crews were racing hard through the line, so the seven-second margin between the US and second-place Italy is a positive sign.
The US Junior Men's Eight also advanced straight through to their final on Saturday. This crew comes to Austria after suffering a pretty big blow during training, as their selected six seat, Rob Munn, needed surgery after breaking his foot. It helped that Rob's replacement, Harvard-bound Nick Jordan, rowed six seat of last year's junior eight and was fresh off of an appearance in the final of the PE Cup at Henley for Eton College. Long story short, Nick is in there, everyone is feeling for Rob, but the junior men's eight is rolling right along. After trailing Italy for the first 500 meters the US used a potent middle thousand to establish a length lead over the field. They looked comfortable coming through the line as they were able to hold off a hard charging GB squad and win by just under three seconds in a time of 5:42.9.
The US Senior Women's Four finished first in their heat, advancing straight through to the final on Sunday. After getting off to a slow start, the four used the same tactics as the men's eights to work their way back through the field and push ahead in the last 500 meters. After being behind by almost one length at the 500m mark, half of a length at the 1000m, and a deck with 500m to go, the US sprinted past second-place Russia to capture the only qualifying spot with a fast time of 6:35.8. Their second thousand was almost three seconds faster than their first. Something tells me that these girls knew exactly what they were doing as three of the rowers, Colwell, Carle and Strowbridge are from the University of Michigan, and they were following the lead of an extremely able Esther Lofgren, straight out of Radcliffe's varsity eight.
Four other US crews avoided the reps on Wednesday by staying on the right side of the progression in their respective heats. Julia Nichols cruised to a comfortable second place finish in her heat of the women's lighweight single, easily grabbing one of the two qualifying spots for Friday's A/B semifinal. Rob Zechmann also qualified for his next round of the men's lightweight single, by finishing his heat in third place. Rob will move on to contest one of the four quarterfinal races on Wednesday, where he will have to finish in the top three again to make it through to Friday's A/B semifinal.
In two of the closest races of the day, the men's coxed pair (Harrison, Farwell, c) Puma) and the men's lightweight pair (Nichols, Rothmeier) advanced straight through to their A/B semifinals on Friday. The coxed pair needed all of a very strong closing thousand to finish just a half length behind Poland and .01 ahead of third-place France. They were never in jeopardy of finishing out of the required top three but their finishing sprint made for the best three boat finish of the morning. In the closest two boat finish of the morning, the men's lightweight pair battled GB for the entire race, as just inches separated the crews for the final 1500m. In the end, the US finished in second place, just one tenth behind GB but well ahead of Japan to avoid the reps on Wednesday.
On Wednesday morning the four US quads that did not advance on Tuesday, will try again in the reps. Tomorrow's racing will also include the heats of the junior races that were not contested today, including the junior men's single, double, pair and coxed four as well as the junior women's single, double, pair and four. The weather is supposed to brighten up and the temps will be on the rise for the remainder of the week.
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