USRowing Winter Speed Order wrapped up three days of racing in Sarasota over the weekend in singles and pairs for the elite athletes training towards the 2023 Worlds.
The pre-Olympic Worlds is the main qualifier for the Olympic Games, so this weekend's racing marks the beginning of the 2024 campaign for many athletes.
The racing itself capped a three week on-the-water training cycle in Florida that followed an altitude erging camp at the USOPC facility in Colorado Springs. Many of the top athletes racing this weekend participated in both.
On Sunday morning, all the A Final wins went to athletes returning from the 2022 Worlds squad: for the women, winners were Sophia Vitas in the Single, Charlotte Buck and Jessica Thoennes in the Pair, and Michele Sechser and in the Light Single. For the men, winners were Sorin Koszyk in the Single, Liam Corrigan and Michael Grady in the Pair, and Jasper Liu in the Light Single.
Interestingly, both open singles saw new faces at the front of the 1x field: though it is early in the season and none of the racing this weekend locked up any lineups--that process will start at the National Selection Regatta (NSR) next month for the singles, pairs, and open doubles--both Koszyk and Vitas finished ahead of the athlete who raced the single at Worlds last year: Ben Davison, who came second to Koszyk; and Kara Kohler, who took third behind Vitas and second place Lauren O'Connor.
Those finishes were still enough to qualify Davison, Kohler and O'Connor for automatic invitations to the first Olympic Events Selection Camp--along with Jacob Plihal, third in the Men's Single. The top three pairs also earned those invitations; that camp will start in April 30th in Chula Vista, at the conclusion of the NSR.
In the lightweight singles, the automatic invitations went to just the top two athletes, which led to some exciting racing for the Lightweight A Finals behind the winners Sechser and Liu. Molly Reckford, Sechser's doubles partner and 2022 Worlds Medallist, had to race her way into that 2nd place spot after trailing in 4th behind Audrey Boerson and Mary Jones Nabel. In the Men's Light Single, Liu went one better to grab the win after completing a similar charge, coming from 5th to just edge his double partner, Zach Heese, for the win, but the top four scullers all finished within a second and a half, and Heese's margin for his 2nd place spot over Sam Melvin in third was just 0.56 seconds, with Jamie Copus less than a second further back in fourth.
The Light Doubles are set to be camp boats this year, selected during the two Olympic Events Selection Camps rather than raced at the NSR in April. The 2023 Selection Procedures do state that "two to four lightweight rowers" can be invited to those, and there is language to indicate that Light Double could be included in the group that will race at World Cup 2 in Varese between the two camps.
The wind did play a role in the weekend: while Sunday brought just a flat, fast tailwind, it was blustery enough on Friday to provide some challenging conditions for the morning time trial and even produced an Instagram highlight and a postponement of the planned quarterfinals by that afternoon. The schedule shift moved the quarterfinals to Saturday morning for the open singles and the Light Men's singles, so those athletes got their money's worth, racing three 2ks in a smidge over 24 hours between two Saturday sessions and Sunday morning's finals.
Light Women's Single
There was some drama in this final, as noted above, in the battle for the important second place spot, but Michelle Sechser's win was never in doubt: she stormed out to a lead and fairly dominated the field throughout the middle of the race at base pace, and hardly needed to lift her cadence to come home with the win.
"I was pretty aggressive with the pacing through the body of the race and it meant there wasn't a huge gear left in the red buoys," said Sechser afterwards. "But having more race opportunities like this, it makes stuff like that fun; to see how wide I can open the throttle for the body, the first 1500, and still put together a nice finishing pace."
"To have space like this where you can try different approaches, different strategies, different pacing, I think it's really important. And you know, by the time you do that domestically and you do that at World Cups, then you show up to Worlds and you've raised so many different race profiles. There's not too much that feels daunting."
The weather, she admitted, did start out a bit daunting, but she enjoyed the challenge.
"The weather was a little bit tricky on the first few days of racing, but that's part of it, and that's what we learn as athletes - to be able to show up to the racecourse and see the waves and not have too much of a reaction to it, not be startled by it or flustered by it. It's just part of managing your headspace as a racer, and I enjoy it.
"The waves were challenging the first few days but it's good to test speed in those kinds of conditions. We saw much worse conditions in Tokyo and it really puts perspective to any sort of negative reaction you might want have in tricky weather.
"Luckily today for the final it was still as could be, a gorgeous flat racecourse, and it was really fun to be on the line with Molly and with Mary Jones. Just fantastic racers. All three of us have silver medals in the lightweight double from World Championships and that's pretty cool, to have three boats on the line with those kinds of accolades.
"I was pleased with the speed I had in the time trial, pleased with the speed today. Just knowing that we've just finished February training, without a major peak or any sort of tapering, to still be knocking on the door of that world record pace, is a good way to start the new season."
Sechser was among the athletes who took advantage of the altitude camp, even though it meant taking a break from on-water training she was already doing in January in Sarasota.
"At the time, I felt a little dubious about leaving warm weather and flat water and time in the boat to go erg for three weeks, but it actually was an incredible experience," she said. "Going through three weeks of nothing but erging with the team was hard, mentally hard. But I think the takeaway was that we really came together as a group, to endure the monotony and endure the mind-numbing strapping into an erg twice a day, every day. I think it really made me realize the importance of bringing the full group together, the different boat classes. You see your teammates bustin' it day in and day out, and it creates something a lot bigger than do I need to be taking strokes on the boat right now or not?
"I think it's been severely underestimated how important that is for boat speed," she said. "There is something there and it's kind of what team sports are all about. I think being out on the water, knowing that all your teammates, all those women, have my back, then when it comes down to five bow balls across at the finish line that little something, of being part of something bigger than yourself, I think it matters and I think that's what Josy's really doing here with these camps."
Light Men's Single
This Light Men's race came down to the wire, complete with an "in the final strokes" lead change as Japer Liu finished his surge from the middle of the pack to out-touch his doubles partner, Zach Heese, and Sam Melvin. In the end, as with the Light Women, the returning members of the Light Double grabbed automatic camp invites, but the racing was a good look at the depth of competition for the two seats at the end of the process.
"It was a good week of racing," Liu said after emerging with the win. "It just shows that the speed across the whole lightweight field is getting faster and getting more condensed, which is which is good for everyone.
"I expected the race today to be five or six boats across at the 1k, and then to kind of see what everyone had after that, and that's exactly how it played out. I was actually down in fifth as far as I remember for most of the race and then slowly started picking some guys off as I tried to close in on the leaders. I started sprinting in the last 500 and managed to finally pass Zach and Sam in the last 100 meters or so."
"I have raced most of these guys before," said Liu, who had two Texas Rowing Center Teammates in the final in Heese and Jimmy McCullough. "I hadn't raced Jimmy Francis or Jamie Copus in singles before today, but [with the others] it gives you a little bit of confidence knowing how other people's races play out, and also extra motivation: you always want to be the top guy among your training partners."
Liu said he does not focus on training for the sprint specifically, but noted that he once held the one minute erg World Record for lightweights:
"I never focused on training it but I've always had the short distance stuff and the big sprint, so that's always been in my back pocket.
"The next big step for us," said Liu, "is the selection camp, which will happen in May, and the goal is to build a fast Lightweight Double, a double that can qualify for the Olympics at this year's World Championships. There's still a lot of work to do ahead of us."
"The results this weekend to show that the men's lightweight rowing scene is getting better and I'm really excited about that for what it means about making a fast double."
Men's Pair
The pairs, on the whole, served up the tightest margins between the "invited top three" and the athletes in fourth making a very good case for a discretionary invitations that High Performance Director Verdonkschot will use to fill out the Selection Camps.
In the Men's Pair, the California Rowing Club snapped up those top spots, with CRC's Michael Grady and Liam Corrigan winning by a couple of seconds, over Nick Mead and Justin Best in second and Oliver Bub and William Bender in third. Andrew Gaard and Henry Hollinswoth in fourth and Chris Carlson and Pieter Quinton in 5th were just 0.31 and 0.81 seconds out of third respectively.
Grady, who rowed the Pair at Worlds last year with Justin Best, has a new partner here in Corrigan, but this is a lineup they have liked rowing in practice.
"There's only so many guys out at CRC, and you do a little bit of rotating here and there and have a sense of which pairs work the best and which guys are the fastest," Corrigan said. "Grady and I figured this [lineup] was going be a good option for both of us."
Both were pleased with their Speed Order racing, according to Grady, despite the relatively short three weeks they had back on the water after the altitude camp.
"It was a short build up into the regatta," said Grady. "Three weeks isn't a whole lot of time to get everything perfect. So we treated that 'as is,' and each race we tried to focus on a small area to improve, to not make major adjustments between each race, but just minor adjustments. I think we executed on that and it's just good to be out there and racing again."
"We didn't really have much preparation at base pace before that," added Corrigan, "but I think we're both fairly skilled enough to feel a good rhythm at pace, and have rowed the pair a little bit in the fall. I felt like we were able to get into pretty good rhythm for all those races and I think we improved each day.
"On the last day, we had some pretty fast competition, but we had a nice start, and were able to more or less control the race from ahead, which is always nice to do. We're pretty happy with the time and how the whole race went."
Corrigan pointed out that he and Grady would have to check in with their coaches as far as plans for the NSR, but noted, "we would certainly be excited to keep rowing this pair."
Women's Pair
The Women's Pair also saw tight racing across its top four A Finalists, but Charlotte Buck and Jessica Thoennes, who raced together in the Women's Eight both in Tokyo and at Worlds last year, got out in front of the tight field, one which saw three different winners across the rounds of racing.
Buck and Thoennes took the final just ahead of their teammates from the USRowing Training Center in Princeton who won each of the semifinals: Kelsey Reelick and Molly Bruggeman who took second, and the third place pair of Claire Collins (who won a bronze in this event at Worlds last year) and her new partner Teal Cohen. Fourth place Meghan Musnicki and Alie Rusher were just a half second back on the three Princeton pairs.
"We were excited to have a really competitive field to race, with everyone putting out a very fast showing for only a few weeks back on the water," said Buck. "Jess and I really credit our coach, Jesse Foglia, for helping us find a lot of speed over the last few weeks. Coming off the Colorado camp, we had to hit the ground running and all of the US Training center women did an amazing job making the most of our time in Sarasota."
"I think our team showed up and had a solid week of racing," added Thoennes. "It was incredibly exciting to see all of our boats develop and improve through the regatta. I am so proud of everyone and it’s a treat to race with and against my friends. I would also like to thank Charlotte for having a lot of trust in me throughout the whole week of racing. I’m excited to see where the whole team can go over the next few months of development."
The morning was not all smooth sailing for the winners: "We had a rather chaotic warm up," Buck confessed. "We had a slight dust up with masters rower who was rowing in the incorrect pattern in the warm up lanes. Certainly got the adrenaline going but Jess really calmed us down in time for the start. We just stayed internal in the first 500 of the race and executed our plan to dig into our fitness and push the speed starting at 750 to go."
Musnicki, the two-time Olympic Gold Medallist in the fourth place crew, took a year off after her third Games--a year 'off' that included hopping in a pair to win Henley, nbd--but says she was not really "planning" a comeback.
"I love racing," she laughed by way of explanation. "I love the sport, I love competing, and it's not a surprise to anyone else that I love training.
"Today was a ton of fun for me to be able to line up and race down the course against those women and it was super tight the whole way."
She started innocently enough by deciding to train and submit a score in the December round of National Team 6k Testing. When that went well, she thought she would take the next step, at the Speed Order and the Sarasota camp that preceded it.
"I spoke with Josy [Verdonkschot], who said, 'You can definitely come to camp. We can try you potentially in a pair with someone or you can race the single.' He was super supportive, which was great and did not try to push me one way or the other. He just left it up to me but was very supportive of whatever I chose to do."
We talked with Musnicki at length about her whole process to this point, including the serendipitous text and cross-country flight that put her and Boston-based Rusher together in the pair less than a month ago, and you can read that feature here.
Women's Single
Texas Rowing Center's Sophia Vitas raced the Double at Worlds last year, but made good in the single all weekend here, winning the time trial and taking first in both her quarter and semi before digging in to win the final on Sunday. She had to track down a fast-starting Lauren O'Connor from ARION, who lead early and took second.
You can watch the race here, thanks to a friendly local correspondent:
"It was a lot of fun," Vitas told USRowing afterwards. "There were fast conditions. After having to deal with the wind (earlier this weekend), it was nice to have some flat water to work with. Each race was a little bit different. I learned a little bit more each time I went down the course. It was fun to compete against all of the fast women from around (the country)."
O'Connor, who has worked her way up the singles ladder these past few years and ended last year with a win in the Lotman Challenge and a close second at the Pan Am Trials, made a statement with her racing this week. In the end, Vitas was the only sculler able to get ahead of O'Connor all weekend.
"Today's race was an awesome way to start off the year," said O'Connor. "I have definitely progressed a long ways from where I started last year so getting to see that speed in comparison to so many great competitors was awesome.
"There were a lot of great parts to the race, but also a lot of room for improvement. It's very helpful to have that knowledge starting off the year so I can have focuses to help continue gaining speed. Overall it was a great experience and I feel very lucky to have such a strong group of women to race against."
Men's Single
California Rowing Club's Sorin Koszyk also came out of a Double at last year's Worlds--one that matched the USA's best finish in the event since 2010--and ran the table all by himself in the single with wins in each of his races this weekend, before finishing ahead of his CRC teammate Ben Davison to win the A Final.
"Today, I was just trying to do my own thing, get into a rhythm, and just put down a good piece," Koszyk said to USRowing. "I thought this week was pretty good. I went through each race just trying to put down a solid piece and peak for the final. We'll just go back to Oakland and just keep training with the guys and see what's fast."
Up Next
The next steps in the 2023 Selection Procedures will see athletes racing for Olympic small boat spots at the NSR, set for the last week of April in Chula Vista. That regatta will give winners in the singles, pairs, and open weight doubles the opportunity to race at World Cup 2, where a competitive finish--top 6 or as otherwise defined in the Selection Procedures depending on the number of entries--will earn them the chance to qualify directly for the Worlds team in their event.
That racing will also provide more opportunities for athletes to earn invitation to the Olympic Event Selection Camps to follow the NSR, where the bigger team boats, and the Lightweight Doubles, will be picked.
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