A big pile of A-Final spots were up for grabs today at Karapiro, and US crews bowled a split today, to continue US team manager Fred Honebein's analogy; four crews through to the medal finals, three crews to the petites.
The US Men's Four of Silas Stafford, Sam Stitt, Henrik Rummel and Giuseppe Lanzone upped their game considerably today, seizing control of their rep from the Chinese and German crews in the second 500 and then holding off a strong challenge from Italy to win; the crew will race for the medals on the first day of finals under the new schedule in place this year, on Friday.
"It was the same race plan, just a lot more calls," said three-seat Sam Stitt after the race. "I'm on Silas, Henrik is on me and Giuseppe is on him, just 100% focus this time." "We decided we would make this a time trial," added Stafford, the stroke of the crew. "No one was allowed to look out of the boat until 1000 meters. We knew we had the speed, and that we just needed to do our raceplan, and there was no reason to see what the other guys are doing."
Rummel rowed himself "into the locker" today, as Honebein put it, spending some time with the medical staff after suffering from dehydration after the race; clearly, effort well spent. "We've all rowed together, we've all been together, and I'm just confident in the ability of these guys to sell themselves there at the end," said Stitt.
"The four's always a tight race, so it's hard to predict anything, but if we have a perfect race, anything is possible," added Stafford.
After a less-than perfect opener a few days ago, the US Women's Quad of Natalie Dell, Megan Kalmoe, Sarah Trowbridge and Margot Shumway rebounded in the best way possible, by being the fastest boat on the lake at all times of their race, period. The crew led off the start and, even when the race was well in hand, continued to stretch the margin over second place Germany. After a silver last year, this crew, with only Trowbridge returning from that boat, will look to be in the hunt again on Friday.
In addition to being fast on the water, the crew is pretty loose; check out our video interview with the crew after today's race.
The US Women's Double of Katie Bertko and Stesha Carle also qualified for the medal race today, rowing a confident race to come from behind to win their rep.
"The whole group has a lot of potential," said US coach Laurel Korholz of the Quad and the Double. "It's great to get some new blood into the group with Natalie. We're all under Tom's [US Head Coach Tom Terhaar] training plan, and the crews do a lot of work together; the quad trains with the eight, the double trains with the pair."
Finally, in the squeaker of the day, Julie Nichols claimed the final spot in the A-Final of the Lightweight Women's Single by just half a second ahead of Canada's Sheryl Preston.
Rowing the heats in near-sinking conditions on Sunday and doubling into the Lightweight Women's Quad during the week definitely complicated this regatta for the US Lightweight Women's Double of Ursula Grobler and Abby Broughton, and that may have taken its toll on the crew, as the crew struggled off the line, got themselves back into a qualifying position midrace but then were unable to respond when the NZ crew cranked it to the line, knocking the US out of the A-Final
"They were shocked at the headwind, I think," said Carlos Dinares, coach of the crew. "We knew the New Zealand double was strong, they had a good heat. The goal now is to win in the quad, and to win the B-Final in the double."
The US Men's Quad and Lightweight Men's Double had tough races today, finishing 4th and 6th in their rep and semifinals today; both will row in the Petites on Friday.
(Our apologies to the Lightweight Brians on the US team, Brian Tryon and Brian de Regt, for mis-identifying them in our report yesterday. Brian Tryon is in the lightweight men's quad, and Brian de Regt is in the lightweight double.)
Finally, the US Lightweight Men's Eight rowed in the final Preliminary Race of the regatta today, finishing fourth. It's never straightforward handicapping these "races for lanes," some crews go all-out, others take advantage of the piece to work out stuff from a training perspective; in any event, it's always good to know you have another race to get it right later in the week.
The Australian LM8+ (as we mentioned, the Aussies are coached by former Princeton head coach Curtis Jordan) definitely fell into the "all-out" category today, throwing down their best race to beat the Italians by two or three seats. Finishing behind these two crews and just ahead of the US was the first Chinese lightweight men's eight I can recall seeing at a Worlds.
The facilities here are somewhat spread out, and FISA has provided team tents to most federations here, as well as one tent labelled "Developing Nations."
National treasures dept: we're not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but the two-time NZ Olympic rowing Gold Medallists, Georgina and Caroline Evers-Swindell are on the (glossy) front cover of the NZ edition of the "Australian Women's Weekly" this week. (To judge by the cover photo, the article doesn't involve much rowing content).
There are rumbling rumors of inclement weather occuring later in the week, but based on the information we currently have, tomorrow's schedule stands as posted, with the second day of semis and all of the adaptive medal finals on tap.
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11/03/2010 5:08:53 PM