After a truly torrential downpour in the wee hours followed by predictions of 6-10 more inches of rain along with flash flood warnings from North Carolina to New England, the weather was almost the story of the first day of the trials finals. But luck had it otherwise; while the storm wreaked havoc about 25 miles to the west, Mercer Lake got a bit of cross headwind and some light drizzle. Shift the lanes to the north, and racing was on - albeit very notably on the last day of September, a rare occurrence this year due to the World Champs being held in the Southern hemisphere.
The morning started off with Ken Jurkowski rowing a very solid 2k; I say 2k because he was pursued very aggressively all the way down the course, with the field never quite letting him ease back. That said, Jurkowski’s rowing suffered very little from the pressure, with an extremely clean move to the water on every stroke despite the headwind conditions.
In the women’s single, Gevvie Stone came out on top of a scrum that saw Brett Sickler as an early leader by a hair; once Stone got the lead, she made several bids to break it open, but couldn’t quite blast away – the incremental gains were certainly enough for the win, tho, and for the last third of the course she was never really in danger of being overtaken.
Coming into 500 to go, the men’s pair looked like it could go a couple different ways – coming out of the 500 to go, it was pretty clear who was going to win. The victorious Training Center pair of Ryan Monaghan and Deaglan McEachern truly put the hammer down the instant they passed the big ‘1500’ float, whew.
In the light single, Dan U-A (okay, Urevick-ackelsb if you must) was shadowed closely early on by vet Greg Ruckman, but steamed steadily away in the third 500 to earn a comfortable enough cushion to ride home without too much drama down the course. Those two will go at it again tomorrow morning.
In the light women’s single, Ursula Grobler got one step closer to the option to triple up at the World Championships by winning the single, although she had to wait until the last quarter of the race to do so. Meghan Sarbanis gunned it out early and hard, and led the field out of the gates and almost to the 500 to go mark, but at 550 to go Grobler pulled even. Sarbanis has been plagued in some racing by forearm and wrist problems, and these returned dramatically this morning; Sarbanis all but shut down, allowing Grobler to row away to win and Julie Nichols to row through from third place by the finish line.
With these trials, what had previously been a Top Three to Final 2 format has apparently been changed to a Top Two to Final 2, so only Grobler and Nichols will advance. This sets up a potentially tricky scenario since Grobler has not yet determined whether she will race all three events if she is able to win all three trials. The fact that forty minutes later, Grobler was in the winning light women’s 4x, this eventuality could come to pass. Should Grobler decline, the spot would pass to the second place sculler. If the second place sculler in the two races had been different people, let’s say Nichols today, and Sarbanis tomorrow, there would be a third final. This is all conjecture at this point, as Grobler has two hours to declare if she wins the second final tomorrow morning, but the what-ifs really compound under these conditions.
In the men’s light pair Mike Nucci and Evan Tsourtsoulas led Andrew Diebold and Greg McKallagat by a couple seconds almost all the way down the course; these two pairs will go again tomorrow, which could be an interesting race to watch.
Coming into the final, the coxed pair could have been expected to be the race of the day, as earlier in the week the crews had shown remarkable parity in speed, particularly in the back of the field. In those heats, however, Steve Kasprzyk, Troy Kepper, and coxswain Marcus McElhenney had bested the pack by about a length, and they did the same again today. That length seemed almost like they owned it today, so although it isn’t a huge margin of victory, it is going to take a special effort for someone to make it up tomorrow.
In the light men’s quad, Matt Carey, Todd Mickelson, Peter Morelli and Brian Tryon threw down early and all the way down the course; on that evidence they will have to make a big mistake tomorrow for this to go to a third day.
Finally, as noted above, the quad of Abby Broughton, Grobler, Kristin Hedstrom, and Victoria Burke won the light women’s quad, again doing the majority of the damage in the final 500, arguably after simply wearing down their opponents. They will face Michelle Trannel, Hillary Saeger, Katherine Robinson, and Lindsey Hochman again tomorrow. Although this fact has gotten lost somewhat in the controversy and tussle over Grobler’s triple attempt, it is worth noting that Broughton is going for a double as well, no small feat, and a fact that has been somewhat overshadowed of late.
While all this was going on, a bald eagle cruised over the Mercer course, hunting and soaring. By the time of this writing, the wind was howling and local waters whitecapping; we should have calm and a drizzle again tomorrow morning, if luck will have it.
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