Team USA's three-week Italian road trip to train in Erba and then race World Cup II in Varese ended with eight crews on the podium, including a gold medal row from the newest combination in the Women's Four, who also set a new World Cup Best Time in their win.
Seven of the medals came in the Olympic event finals on Sunday, while Sophia Luwis second in the Light Women's Single on Saturday to kick off the medal haul. On Sunday, the US squad collected one gold, four more silvers--two of which came in races decided by a bowball or less--and two bronze medals, after fielding 19 entries, including a few 'USA2' entries in events where selection is still on-going.
The by-a-bowball silvers were in the Women's Double (by .07) and Women's Light Double (by .08), with China 1 just staying clear of Kristi Wagner and Sophia Vitas in the open double and then the GB lightweights--last year's World Champions--needing to rally in the closing strokes to nip Michelle Sechser and Molly Reckford at the line. The finish in the Men's Double was nearly as close, with Ben Davison and Sorin Koszyk battling the Italy all the way to the line--where the Italians had just enough lift from their home crowd to take the win--and the other silver went to the Women's Pair of Meghan Musnicki and Alie Rusher. The bronze medals for the US came from the Men's Four and Kara Kohler in the Women's Single.
The results did have selection implications for three of the medal-winning boats: the Women's Pair, the Men's Double, and single sculler Kohler did well enough to cement their selection in the boat class, and they have until 5pm Monday, June 19th, to accept their spot.
The standard was high for those boats: since where each needed to finish is based on the number of nations in the race who were in the top 8 places at last year Worlds, not even earning an A Final spot was enough. The Women's Pair, for instance, needed their top-two finish to claim their berth at Worlds.
The athletes from the other three boats which won at NSRs either raced in different combinations, with W2x winner Kristi Wagner back racing with last year's partner Sophia Vitas; a different boat class, with M2- winners Michael Grady and Liam Corrigan in the Men's Four; or did not advance far enough in the progression: Jacob Plihal got knocked out during the blustery quarterfinals round of the Men's Single, and had to settle for a win in the C Final on Saturday.
Women's Four
The Women's Four took gold ahead of Britain and Australia, setting a new World Cup Best Time of 6:17.55 just a bit more than two seconds clear of the British.
The crew featured the top women's pair from the 2022 US squad--Tokyo Olympians Claire Collins and Madeleine Wanamaker--who won a bronze at last year's World Championships, along with two boatmates from the 2022 Worlds Eight they doubled into: Kelsey Reelick and Molly Bruggeman, who was a World Champ in the four in 2018.
"The race was very fun and exciting today," said Collins, who stroked the crew. "We were practicing sticking to our race plan and staying in our boat this weekend, and I think we learned and executed better and better each race.
"It was tough competition and we definitely knew we would need to relax into our rhythm each stroke. We are pushed every day by our teammates and we share insights and learn from each other, so a huge thanks to them for pushing us to this level.
"We are excited for the whole US squad," Collins added, about the successes of the whole team in Varese.
Women's Double
The closest US finish of the weekend belonged to USA1 in the Women's Double: the 2022 combo of Kristi Wagner and Sophia Vitas emerged as a crew again after the first round of stateside selection, and took a silver after just running out of room to catch the China 1 crew.
Wagner and Vitas, fifth at Worlds last year, emerged from the pack by rowing the fastest 2nd, 3rd, and 4th 500m splits. Their charge through the middle of the race helped them catch the fast starting China 2 crew, the French, and finally the Australians to lock up the silver medal. Their US teammates Emily Kallfelz and Lauren O'Connor took 5th in the final, after passing China 2 themselves in the last 500.
All four US scullers doubled into the quad, where they just missed making the A Final out of the rep, and took 7th earlier in the morning on Sunday.
"The double was a fun race," said Wagner afterwards. "We gave it all we had and in the end that wasn’t quite enough but I’m so proud of Sophia and know we did everything we could have."
Wagner added that the doubling up was tough, saying, "I’m glad we took the gamble. We got better in the quad throughout the regatta and this morning put together a row we were proud of."
Wagner, who is looking to make her third senior team after racing the double at the Tokyo Olympics with Gevvie Stone and at Worlds last year with Vitas, also balanced this Italy trip with her new side gig as the host of podcast called 'The Other Three Years' which tracks her Olympic journey (you can find it here); row2k asked her about how she juggled the two:
"I tried to do a bit of pre-recording before flying to Europe but I have had to do some funny things to record in hotel rooms. The podcast is my way to share this journey and hopefully inspire others to chase their dreams, not only in rowing but in anything."
Light Women's Double
The second-closest finish came in the Light Women's double, the event here which may have featured the most countries looking to contend for a medal at the 2023 Worlds.
The USA's Sechser and Reckford took silver after using a blistering shift in the second 500 to move to the front and control the race before being caught just at the line by last year's World Champs from Britain, Emily Craig and Imogen Grant.
The two crews finished in the same order at last year's Worlds, but the USA never led that race, and today narrowed the gap from some three seconds last year to a scant 0.08 seconds--and that against a GB crew that broke their own World Best Time in the semis here on Saturday.
"Even before they broke the record, our goal was to go for the win at this regatta," said USA's Sechser, "so knowing that waking up on the day of the final and going for the win meant we had a chance to take down the world record holders actually sweetened the deal.
"The race plan today was to set a really lethal base pace throughout the body of the piece, and we did that. We came off the line and Molly set a great rhythm. We got right into that really aggressive base pace and started lifting throughout the final quarter.
"It is always hard to come up short, especially by a couple of hundredths of a second, but for this kind of midseason check-in, it's really exciting to see that Josy's training plan is working well for us," said Sechser, referring to USRowing High Performance Director Josy Verdonkschot. "We're both healthy and strong and rowing well, and the speed is trending in the right direction. It is a little confidence boost; last year at Worlds in Czech Republic, we were about three seconds behind GB, so being 8/100s behind them today is a good speed change for us."
Reckford, who has moved to the stroke seat to start the season this year, credited the experience Sechser brings to the role of being the bow seat:
"We have tweaked our race profile in the new lineup," Reckford said. "Michelle is an expert racer, and her skill in reading the competition to call us up at the right moment really shone today. She saw an opening and we went for it.
"We are so lucky to be racing in an event where world records seem to fall every year. It's humbling to need to redefine what 'fast' means so often, but it also inspires us to find more - more speed, more courage, more strength. I am so proud of Michelle for how she bowed this regatta, and I knew that from start to finish she would have my back and follow me wherever I needed to take us. It will always sting to come so close yet fall short, but I am still beyond proud of that race and how we committed to our goal."
Sechser noted that changing the lineup has made things just new enough to create even more progress for the duo, now in their third season together.
"Reversing the lineup has helped in a way that I think has forced us both to really level up our skills," said Sechser, who also admitted that the real key to their boat speed and the day's medal was just being smart and aggressive.
"Our motto going into this final was keep your head cool and your nails sharp."
Men's Double
The Men's Double was the third super-close silver for the US on the day, with the new combination of Ben Davison and Sorin Koszyk going stroke for stroke with the Italians in the closing meters.
"We're very new to [the boat]," said Davison, who raced the single last year. "We don't have a lot of experience on the course together, so we're figuring it out as we as we go along.
"We had two pretty consistent rows in the heat and the semi final which we were happy with, so for today, we were just looking to go out, replicate that first 1000, and then and then try to push a bit more in the third 500. We seemed to do that and then [the Italians] pushed back just coming into that last 500.
"We were happy with it," Davison said of the race. "We executed what we wanted to do. We would have liked to have gotten the win, obviously, but that's the way it is. We had a good race that we're happy with and it's good progress."
As hard as it might be to beat a fired up Italian crew on home water, Davison said they welcomed the challenge at the end of the race.
"That's where you learn the most, when you're in races like that where you really have to stick to a plan, work together, and not deviate from what the plan is. I'm glad we had that today. It was a tight race that pushed us all the way to the end. I think that's a good combination there [in the Italian boat], so I was thrilled to get to test ourselves against them and we're excited to keep going."
Women's Pair
The Women's Pair also took silver, but the two-boat battle between the Australian winners and the USA's Musnicki and Rusher in the second 500 strung out the field, and the medals were settled a bit earlier in this race. Spain took the bronze, just edging USA2, Jess Thoennes and Charlotte Buck, off the podium. Britain and Germany took fifth and sixth.
The silver qualifies the Musnicki and Rusher pair for Worlds, which means that two-time Olympic champion (and three time Olympian) Musnicki will be prolonging the not-quite-retirement she discussed with row2k after the Winter Speed Order for a few more months.
"It was a ton of fun," said Musnicki about taking another turn on the World Cup stage. "It was great to line up again. It's been a while since I've lined up and Alie's never lined up at a World Cup. The Olympics was her first and last international race until now.
"The pair is a boat that you need to spend time in in order to develop speed," she said, noting that the major advantage she and Rusher have had since getting in the pair together, which only happened just ahead of the Winter Speed Order, is the consistent time they have now had to train in the boat.
"You can tell usually pretty quickly if you're going to click, and then it's just a matter of putting in good time training, consistent blocks of that, and challenging each other.
"We each have our own technical focuses that our coaches Skip Kielt and Mike Teti help us with and we work on, but there's no secret sauce. You can't escape the work that needs to be done and the time that it takes to do it."
Musnicki also talked about getting to race the reconstituted Australian pair of Jess Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre. Morrison and McIntyre took silver as a pair in 2019, then won Olympic gold in the Four, but came up short in their bid to also make the A Final and podium in the pair in Tokyo when weather compressed the schedule.
Musnicki and Morrison teamed up in 2022 during their "off" year from their respective national teams to win the Women's pair at the Henley Royal Regatta, but in Varese they were both back in their national team colors.
"Jess is one of my really close friends," said Musnicki, "and I have so much respect for her and Annabelle, their experience and their results in the pair. It's great to see them back together and just as fast as they've ever been, working towards their next goal. Plus, it's fun to have a carrot."
Men's Four
The US Men's Four--Liam Corrigan, Chris Carlson, Nick Mead, and bowman Michael Grady--took a solid third place behind a real brawl between Britain, the European Champions and three-quarters of last year's World Champions, and the Olympic Champions from Australia. Italy, China, and France rounded out the A Final. The US crew all returns from last year's team, but was only recently boated together during the first selection camp that preceded the World Cup trip.
"We selected the four in Chula Vista in late May," said two seat Nick Mead. "We had a group of eight guys, and the other four were racing the pairs here. We hadn't been rowing together for much of the year because we're a decentralized system, but we got together, did a few pieces, did a few time trials, and came up with this lineup that put down a few fast times.
"We had about three weeks together to train and prep for this race. So overall, we're happy with how we executed and how we improved through the regatta, but obviously with the gap between us and first, we still think we have a ways to go. We're excited to get back, train hard again, and get ready for the next one."
"For us, it's just times down the track together," added three seat Chris Carlson. "This was our first time doing 2k races together and, overall, they went pretty well. There's definitely some room to improve in the middle of our race, but there's definitely some signs of speed and room to grow. We think our potential is a little bit higher than this."
"What we've been working on last couple weeks is striking a balance," said stroke seat Liam Corrigan, "between very high rate, almost reverse ratio type rhythm and the opposite, which is more extremely powerful, extremely long through the water. If you go too far in either direction you're going sacrifice a little bit of boat speed, at least with how we've been rowing.
"We were thinking about trying to meet somewhere in the middle, where we had some good press through the water, but also a little bit of quickness and alacrity to come up the slide. From a rhythm perspective, that's what we've been thinking about. We're trying for something that's pretty natural. We like to say that we all have a pretty balanced skill tree. We're all fairly well rounded rowers. We're trying to just keep it fairly simple and not do anything too exotic. I think it mostly works, and we just need to improve on that."
Micheal Grady's comment from the bow seat was that he enjoyed seeing the guys go to work in front of him: "It's fun watching them really go after it.
"I'm excited to explore where we're going from here," Grady added, "So we're going to get back to work and see what shapes up out of it."
Up Next
After the eight medals on the weekend, Michelle Sechser made a point to mention that the energy on the US Team is "really high."
"It's great to see so many people on Team USA with medals around their necks," said Sechser. "It's good to feel the momentum building now that we've had Josy [Verdonkschot] at the helm for almost a year and a half now. It takes time and now we're actually really starting to see his system, his training plan, and the emphasis on speed in your boat class really come to fruition. I feel like this World Cup for Team USA was a good first look at kind of seeing all that come to life."
With just three crews now able to declare for Worlds, the rest of the hopefuls for the 2023 Worlds team will head back to the States and a second round of selection, one that will include the eights, fours, and quads, as well as lineups in the small boats that will revert to open trials: the Women's Double, Men's Pair, and Men's Single.
Notes from the Course
Daredevil Drone Pilots - the drones providing the video coverage went to new, well, lows this weekend, zipping along close enough to the water--and the racing crews--that photographers near the finish line had to be careful not to get the drone in their shots. The low drones seemed a bit too close to the action but folks at home did get some great images and close-ups - see the drone at near sea level here.
Debut on the Podium - Sophia Luwis won her silver medal in the Light Single while also making her World Cup debut; after missing Worlds last year due to a car accident just a week before she was scheduled to head to Worlds in the Lightweight Quad, Luwis finally raced in her first international event this weekend--and completed her comeback in style. You can learn more about her story in this video.
A Light Double Update - with the LM2x and LW2x being run as camp-selected boats this year, the World Cup results did not finalize any lightweight spots on the Worlds team as they did last year. Even Sechser and Reckford's silver is still just a data point, if a good one, in the selection process, which will continue back in the States. The other two women in the mix, Mary Jones Nable and Audrianna Boersen, took 7th overall in Varese, with their Light Double winning the B Final. The two Light Men's Doubles took 9th and 10th in the B Final, with just 0.03 seconds separating Sam Melvin and Jimmy McCullough from Zach Heese and Jasper Liu.
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