The second day of the Senior/Junior World Championships qualifying heats are in the books. The weather has improved significantly since yesterday, with temps about 10 degrees warmer, winds about 10mph less, pretty flat water, and dry conditions. This morning also saw a much more exuberant grandstand, with the familiar chant of "Deutschland, clap-clap-clap, Deutschland, clap-clap-clap" firing things up from the very first race. Any fans of junior rowing would know that either grows on you, or it begins to really annoy you by Sunday. These ears will never forget when the German junior rowing machine raised their flag for 13 of 14 events in Oslo's 1993 Junior Worlds. And does a world championship regatta ever really begin until you hear someone bellow "Come on, Jaaay-Baaay!!" Of course I am referring to the fans from Great Britain, who were also out in force this morning, with dozens of Union Jacks flying around. I think most of the enthusiastic fans were staying warm and dry yesterday, as there is a considerably different and better feel the regatta today. The Senior/Junior Worlds have really begun.
After a long red-eye flight, a 100-Euro cab ride straight to the course, and some connection problems on Tuesday, Row2k.com finally had a chance to see some of the things Ottensheim and the Greater Linz, Austria area had to offer. The first thing that you cannot miss is the mighty, mighty Danube River that flows through Linz. It is wide, it flows very swiftly and it is full of commercial traffic that deftly maneuvers between the many bridge abutments. When you run along the banks of the river you cannot help but notice the mountainous levees to your left and right, making the severe flooding in this area a few years ago hard to imagine. There are several boat clubs along the river located on top of the levees, but I didn't see any crews on the water this morning. After my description of the power of the Danube you might be thinking how in the world this waterway is fit for a World Championship. Well, in 1972 the Austrian government and some rowing minds got together and constructed a forty foot high levee-type mountain of land at one of the sharper bends on the river. The levee separates the swift Danube from a perfectly square, man-made, 2200 meter placid lake with fair conditions across all lanes.
Although the race course is completely unaffected by the Danube's current it is still interesting to see the difference from one side of the levee to the other. Think about the difference between the Niagara River and the Black Rock Canal up in Buffalo as you cross from the US into Canada on the Peace Bridge. All right, let's get to the rowing...
The US completed in eight of the nine events that ran qualifying heats this morning. The junior men's single (Keenan Reelick), the junior men's pair (Hogan, Brooks), and the junior men's double (Meyer, Nesel) were able to get straight through to their next round in three of the most competitive and well subscribed events in the championships. Five other US crews, the JW4-, JM4+, JW1x, JW2-, and the JW2x will have to race in their respective reps on Thursday to earn a spot in the next round. Several countries had great mornings in the small boat events including some surprises. Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Greece were noticeably ahead or had some thrilling finishes in many of their races. Roars of "Hell-as, Hell-as, Hell-as" kept coming from a small but very, very loud Greek cheering section. Man, were they ever excited when their men's double decided to come off the line last, spot the field five seconds at the 1000, and then row 40+ for the second half. They grabbed a qualifying spot and pulled the largest negative split of the regatta so far. As usual, there were plenty heats that had some coaches questioning the random lane draw, as there were at least three heats that had GER, ITA, GBR and FRA racing it out for one or two spots. Yikes. OK, the details of the US races...
In the JM1x, Keenan Reelick from GMS Rowing Center, was able to row very comfortably while qualifying for Thursday's quarterfinal round. Keenan led for most of the way before handing over the heat to his Russian counterpart with about 700 to go, rowing a clean 26 s/m across the line, in a very leisurely 7:36.99. Not sure about this one, but Keenan was probably happy to see his four boat heat, with three to qualify, that included Iran and Albania. With some experience in the ever competitive 4x from last year, Keenan knew better than to row any harder than he had to. He'll have a much tougher row tomorrow in the quarterfinal, with three to qualify for Friday's A/B semis.
All eyes were on the JM2-, of JP Hogan and AJ Brooks, as they started their last leg of an extremely demanding racing summer racing schedule. In the last eight weeks, AJ and JP, the stern pair of the 8+ National Champion Newport AC, have gone from Newport, CA to Sacramento for CJs, then back to Newport, then over to Cincinnati for Youth Invites, where they won, then back to Newport, over to Princeton for pair trials, then back to Newport, all the way over to the UK for Henley to race in the Thames Cup, on to Germany for a bit of a training camp, then finally on to Linz for Worlds. A rough guess makes that about 20,000 air miles. I hope they were getting double points. As if the travel wasn't hard enough, they chose to enter an event with 24 other crews!. I'm not make any excuses for these guys, but seriously. They did have to race regardless of all this interesting stuff. You could have guessed that these guys have spent A LOT of time together in a boat or otherwise, as they looked clean and together in advancing this morning. JP and AJ were probably somewhat surprised by a fiery Greek crew next to them, but they looked comfortable coming across the line in second place behind Greece in 7:04.32. They only needed to finish top-three to advance to Thursday's quarterfinal where they will be able to show some more speed. After a long road traveled to get here, I am sure they appreciated being able to cruise home over the last 1000m today.
The third crew to qualify straight through to the next round was the JM2x of Austin Meyer and Tom Nesel. Before getting to the results, I must say that if I was a junior rower, I would be terrified of this event. First, there are 32 entries, by far the most of any other event in the regatta. And second, the standards in this event for medaling, making the A final, or even making the B final are probably the narrowest of any event and at closer inspection very close to U23 and Senior standards. The bottom line is that you gotta be really good to even think about showing up for this event. Throw in the fact that Austin and Tom average 6'0", 150 lbs. and it makes you cover your eyes. Despite all of this, there is a quiet confidence in these guys, and some chatter that they might be the best US junior double in more than a decade. The fact is that they are at least the fastest double in the US this year as they tore apart every domestic race they entered, including US Youth Nationals. They certainly showed this in their heat this morning, finishing third behind Serbia and Denmark and just ahead of Austria in 6:49.33. Without even knowing the draw, I can assume that they will have a brutal quarterfinal on Thursday with three to go to the A/B semis on Friday.
The US JM4+, definitely falls into that category of "we got the hard heat" as they had to go up against GER, ITA, and GBR in only their second race as a crew. To make matters worse, it was only one to go to the final on Saturday. Welcome to Austria Mr. Lewis, Schmidt, Lutz and Searle! Despite falling behind in the first 500m, the crew was game for a race and posted the fastest second 500 of any crew in the field. They charged back to almost level with GBR for third at the halfway point but then fell off the pace in the last 1000, finishing in fourth place. The will have to figure some things out tonight, as their four-to-go rep will be tomorrow morning.
The other four crews, the JW4-, JW1x, JW2-, and JW2x, all faced severe progressions to qualify straight through to their next round. The JW4- could never get their bow ball into the one and only qualfying spot, but looked solid in crossing the line in third place behind two very impressive crews from NZL and GER. In the JW1x, Cara Linnenkohl, out of Redmond, WA was able to maintain contact in her heat for a longer period of time, but could never out pace the Norwegian sculler that nabbed the only spot in front of her. By the time Cara crossed the line she already looked like she was ready for her challenging two-to-go to the A/B semis rep on Thursday. The same could be said about the JW2- of Shannon Stief and Mary Maginnis, as they were able to get into a nice race with Austria for second spot in their heat, but never made an impression on a brilliantly sharp Bulgarian crew that finished 11 seconds clear of second and 13 seconds clear of the US in third. Watch out for this pair to get better with each race as they have only been rowing in this boat for three weeks. They will have a slightly easier on the mind four-to-go rep tomorrow. Finally, the JW2x of Emily Eiffert and Mairi McKellop missed out on direct qualification for the A/B semis on Friday. Bulgaria and Poland grabbed the two spots early, as they built a sizeable advantage over the US, who sat comfortably in third place for most of the race. The US looked like they will have plenty of juice left to make a strong effort in the three-to-go to the A/B semis rep on Thursday.
There is still more to come from the PM session of Wednesday in Linz. The senior women's light quad and the senior men's light quad have some work to do to qualify for their respective finals on Sunday. Row2k will be there and give race reports for both events. Row2k.com mistakingly reported yesterday that the JW4X and the JM4X also will race their reps on Wednesday afternoon, but the juniors get the day off and one more day to prepare for their reps on Thursday.
Comments | Log in to comment |
There are no Comments yet
|
row2k's Worlds coverage is brought to you in part by:
row2k's Worlds coverage is brought to you in part by: