When the 2019 World Rowing Championships begin Sunday, the implications for many of the record number of crews competing will reach a full year past the medals that will be awarded on the last days of finals racing.
At stake in 14 Olympic boat classes, and four Paralympic classes, will be a first chance to qualify for a spot in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It is a high-stakes event that can mean the difference between months of nervous teeth-gnashing, paired with what-if doubts for the countries that don’t finish high enough in each respective boat class, or a winter training cycle with a guaranteed result of a race for an Olympic medal.
For the US contingent of men's and women's crews, the history of the last two Olympic cycles has been very different. All six women's crews earned Olympic placements in 2015, and of the two that didn't qualify in 2011 - the single and double - both advanced from the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta.
History has not been as kind for the US men. In both of the last two qualifying world Championship regattas, the US missed qualifying in several boat classes, including most notably the men's eight, long considered a flagship boat in the American rowing community.
A US men's eight did race in the 2012 and 2016 Games, but gaining entry both years was done in the Final Olympic Qualifier, and not without significant disruption to the plans laid out at the National Team Training Center when those last two cycles began.
The results for the remaining men's crews to miss a direct qualification during those prior World Championships left the US unrepresented in multiple events. There was neither a men's double, or lightweight double racing in London in 2012.
Among the sculling boat classes in 2016, only the men's lightweight double qualified to race from the 2015 World Championships. The men's quad, double, and single failed to earn an Olympic spot in both the World Championships, and the Final Qualification in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Heading into the opening of this qualification year, the picture for the women's crews looks as promising as it has in prior cycles. The women's eight and four are the defending World Champions, and each of the other Olympic class crews in contention this year either medaled in 2018 or rowed in the final.
For the men, the results have not been as solid, or reassuring. The men's national team crews have had mixed results in the last two World Championships. The eight won silver in 2017, but finished a breath out of the medals in fourth last year in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The four raced in the C final, and finished 13th overall. The remaining US Olympic class crews were even further out of contention.
row2k has been running previews for each of the Olympic Class events over the past two weeks. They can be found on the World Championship coverage page along with photo galleries for every crew.
For the US national team training center crews that were selected and announced on Aug. 15th, row2k is taking a slightly closer look.
Men's Crews
Because the men's training center has not qualified an eight directly from the World Championship in either 2011 or 2015, the men's training center eight and four are in the brightest spotlight.
The crews recently named appear to be the deepest to come out of selection in a few years and are a mix of current or recently graduated US collegians, and returning veterans, including three who rowed in the 2016 Olympic eight - Mike DiSanto, Austin Hack, and Alex Karwoski. Completely new to the senior sweep team are Clark Dean, who is taking his sophomore year from Harvard, and Ben Davison, who graduated from Washington last year.
Both Davison and Dean are experienced international rowers. Dean won consecutive men's single titles at the Junior World Championships, and Davison has raced in 12 total World Championships in sculling boats at the Junior, U23 and World Championships levels.
He also raced in the men's quad that did not qualify for the 2016 Olympics from the Final Qualification Regatta that year.
Of the field of 10 eights that will race in this World Championship, only five will qualify to the 2020 Olympics. Two spots will remain open at the Final Qualifier next spring. Of the 22 fours competing, eight will qualify for Tokyo. Two others can reach Tokyo through the Qualifier.
Since returning to the helm of the men's team in 2017, Mike Teti has been building a team he says remains "a work in progress," and he is careful not to place any do or die pressure on this year's crews.
Teti is no stranger to the pressure of facing a last chance qualifier. After the 2011 team missed qualification, Teti was hired to run selection, and coach the 2012 crew through qualification and, eventually, a fourth-place finish in London.
He is aware of the pressure to avoid another missed opportunity, and the fact the it has gotten harder to qualify every year.
"I'm a nervous wreck for sure," Teti said. "This is a work in progress. We're getting better, but there are definitely things to work on every day. It's not perfection, not that it needs to be perfection. But there are definitely things that we need to keep adjusting.
"There is a lot of pressure (to qualify) for sure. And the field has also tightened up. There used to be seven eights that could qualify (from a World Championship) now it's the top five eights. Same thing with the four. There used to be 11 fours, now it's eight."
Since the end of the last cycle FISA has made substantial changes to the Olympic schedule to establish an equal number of spots for men and women. That included eliminating the lightweight men's four, and adding a women's four.
That occurred at the same time the number of athlete spots allotted for rowing have also decreased. Those changes have worked to even the competitive levels in the among the sweep crews.
"I think there is a lot of parity out there," he said. "There are more crews out there that have similar speed. In most events, you used to have three or four crews that were real contenders, and generally one or two that were gold medal contenders. Now, when I look at the entries in the eight, I think, where's the slow one? It's hard to find one.
"All these crews are capable, and they're talented, and you just have to be good on the day, even though you think you go in there prepared."
Teti does not have to look further back than the last two years for that example. The eight took silver in 2017, and in 2018 won their heat with the fastest time from both heats, but then finished out of the medals in the final.
"I thought our boat was faster than the previous year. Certainly, the times reflected it," Teti said. "They showed that in the heat. But then in the finals, we were fourth. Maybe the other crews had a little bit of a better race. Maybe we were a bit off. You just can't make a mistake, and that's unnerving.
"I think the approach we are going to take is we have to be good on every piece. We have to row our best piece. I do think that we're building a team, so I do think no matter what happens, we'll be better next year. I do think we'll be an upgrade next year over this year, and that's the direction we're taking" he said.
"But when people ask me who will qualify, I really don't even want to answer the question. You don't want to jinx anything, not that I believe we're going to jinx anything, it's just we've got things to work on, and that's what I'm doing right now."
"We've watched all these crews race this year, plus the crews we raced last year, and we know they are all good crews with good personnel. They're highly skilled, have adequate power, and good coaching. If you said to me, pick the top six, I couldn't. Or the placing. I wouldn't be able to do it."
Everyone is in contention, Teti said. "These are really good crews. Look at the Brits, they lose to New Zealand at Henley, and then they come back and beat them by a few seconds in the World Cup. I think those crews are interchangeable. Maybe someone is a little bit off in this race, and a little bit better in that race.
"So, I have one message - we've got to get a little bit better every day. (Qualifying) is definitely in the back of your mind, and it's unnerving, because you know that in some of these races, you have five boats within a second."
Of the athletes that will race in the men's eight, three were in the boat that had to qualify in the Final Qualification Regatta in 2016, including Hack, Karwoski, and DiSanto. Hack said last week he remembers how it felt not to qualify in 2015 and the pressure it put on the team through the winter and spring training.
But talking about the possibility of that happening again is not something this team is doing, he said.
"We definitely don't talk about it," Hack said. "I think we are one hundred-percent all thinking about Austria. I think any way you look at it, it's best to just focus on the task at hand."
That said, when pressed about having to go through the qualifier in 2016, Hack said the experience should benefit this crew.
"I'm not the only guy in the boat that went through it, and the advantage is, we've been in that high pressure situation already. It's just another high-pressure race where we got an opportunity to execute when it was all on the line.
"So, I think it's good, from a racing perspective, to have been in a situation like that. That's my main takeaway," he said.
Teti agreed that what they are focusing on right now is what is directly in front of them. And that the crews are getting better a little bit each day.
"We think we have decent boats, and we think they are getting better," he said. "Even now, when we're in final preparation, the rowing is improving, we're improving. I'm not going to say it's way better. It's just a little bit better. We're getting the speed in a little bit easier way. We know what we have to do in practice this afternoon, or this morning, and then we go from there."
Women's Crews
With the addition of the women's four to the Olympic schedule, the US women's training center has three team boat classes that it will hope to qualify in Linz, including the women's quad, four and eight.
Considering the record the women have amassed under the direction of head coach Tom Terhaar, and the results from this cycle's previous World Championships, the women's crews should be favored to win or medal in Linz, and to be as close to a lock to qualify for Tokyo as can be considered.
There are 11 women's eights entered for Linz, and five slots open for direct qualification to Tokyo. Two other slots will be contended next spring in the last chance regatta.
Terhaar has led the US women's eight to three consecutive Olympic championships, and has never had to qualify a crew at a Final Qualification Regatta. This qualification year promises to be no different for Terhaar and the US women, despite an off year in 2017.
The cycle following the Rio Games saw an athlete turnover at the Princeton Training Center that changed the dynamic from a veteran based group to a younger, less experienced one. Of the women who rowed in the 2016 eight and quad, eight women did not return to start the cycle.
"This quad has been different," Terhaar said. "There's a lot more first timers. There are a couple of veterans, but there isn't quite the number of people with experience as there was leading up to '16, or even leading up to '12. So, it's different. But they're good kids, and they are eager to go."
Terhaar is meticulous in the way the women's training center develops from cycle to cycle, and he has always marked the qualification year as second in importance only to the actual Olympic year.
"It's definitely the second most important," Terhaar said, "and qualification is the goal. It is qualification, first and foremost. That's the most important thing, making sure we get the opportunity next year."
Along with the core group that has been part of the training center for most of this cycle, two experienced veterans returned to the team, and are racing in Linz, including Meghan Musnicki a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the eight who is back in the boat this year, and Caryn Davies, a three-time Olympian who retired after Rio. Davies came back this spring and is stroking the four.
According to Terhaar, having the women's four added to the Olympic schedule did not change the way the women's team developed right away because the training center has always used the four as a key development boat. "Even when it wasn't an Olympic event, we've been using it as a pretty important development boat," he said.
Prior to this cycle, after the eight was selected, with the next priority was the quad. "What it's done, I think, is instead of us trying to get those next four best people into a quad, we've been able to keep them in sweep," he said.
One other notable result from adding the four is the increased medal opportunity it has opened for countries that don't have the ability to field a competitive eight. Sixteen countries have entered the event in the hopes of cashing in on one of the eight qualification spots up for grabs in the four at this World Championship.
"(The four) is definitely becoming a more competitive event every year, and it's going to be a big challenge, a good challenge, for us," Terhaar said.
Paralympic Crews
In the Para events, the US was fully represented in the 2016 Paraylmpics, with all four boat classes qualified in 2015. In 2012, the US was not represented in the women's single.
At last year's World Championship, the US had Para class crews in all four of those finals. Hallie Smith won bronze in the women's single, and the coxed four took silver. The US is sending a full contingent of crews to this World Championships and should race in contention to qualify in each of the four Para classes - the men's and women's singles, the mixed double, and the mixed, coxed four.
The coxed four has had a switch in lineups from the crew that was named from the Para camp to the boat that will race in Linz. Michael Varro, who was in the silver medal boat from the 2018 World Championships, withdrew.
But the four has been a constant contender over the last two cycles, and has won silver medals the last three years behind Great Britain, including in the 2016 Paralympics. It should contend again this year.
Also in line for a qualification is men's single sculler Blake Haxton, who finished fourth last year, and fourth in Rio. There are seven available qualifying spots for the Para singles in Linz, and eight each for the mixed double and coxed four.
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