RowingRelated

While you might not know it yet, Nick Trojan is a name you are likely to hear for years to come. Trojan has had international experience before, but following a fall rowing with Carlos Dinares on Lake Samish, Trojan has burst onto the senior national team candidate list with a fantastic performance in the men’s single at the first National Selection Regatta, placing fourth in a field of 38, behind only Beijing Olympians Ken Jurkowski , RR interviewee Warren Anderson , and Sam Stitt . And did I mention that Trojan is a lightweight? Here, Trojan shares some info on his background in the sport and the racing at NSR I, with a view toward further trailing this summer. RR: How did you first get into rowing? What was it that hooked you about the sport? NT: I started rowing at LBJC, and wasn’t that into it until I got about midway through the season and we started racing. I won my first race in a novice quad–that was the beginning of my sculling career–I wasn’t a fan of doing all the wor...

Spring racing season is upon us, and it's high time for some predictions. The field at Crew Classic is slated to be the largest to date, and there are a number of very talented teams gearing up to duke it out on Mission Bay this weekend. What follows are our thoughts on who, we think, are the top teams [Warning: opinionated content below]. Men's Events The Men's Varsity Eight, Copley Cup: 1. Harvard 2. Cal 3. Stanford The guys who make up the Crimson varsity eight are all (or nearly all) experienced at the international level, so flying across the country to race is not something that will rattle this crew, nor will the characteristically rough conditions on Mission Bay. The Golden Bears have a great deal of talent, with senior leadership from 2011 U23 world champ Chris Yeager, and several of last year's fantastic frosh eight moving up into the varsity eight. Stanford typically performs very well in the early season, and will be in familiar territory, while Cor...

Dispatches from Henley: Tom Copeland of Inner Rowing provides coverage of the 2012 Henley Boat Races, with photography courtesy of Iain Weir of RowingPhotography.co.uk . CULRC leads OULRC (Photo: © Iain Weir) It was under clear, sunny skies that Oxford and Cambridge met for this year's Women's and Lightweight Men's boat races in Henley-on-Thames. The first two races down the course were the Intercollegiate Men's and Women's races which were added to the race programme for the first time last year. With Downing, Cambridge's fastest women's crew, unable to attend, Emmanuel took up the challenge of Pembroke College Ox. but were unable to match the pace of a crew which contained both Natalie Redgrave and Brianna Stubbs, both of whom were members of last year's winning Oxford Blue Boat. Pembroke crossed the line with well over a length of clear water separating the crews and having never been bothered by Emmanuel. In the men's Intercollegiate ...

This week's video comes to us from sunny San Diego, as Crew Classic has seen fit to upload a tremendous amount of racing to its YouTube channel over the past few days and weeks (currently there are 330 races available), and as this weekend marks 2012 edition of Crew Classic. The race posted above is the grand final from the premier women's varsity eight event, the Jessop-Whittier Cup,  and features three of the six crews that would later make up the varsity eight grand final at the 2011 NCAA Rowing Championships in May (Cal, Stanford, and USC). Arguably the best female sweep rower in the U.S., Eleanor Logan (who won the fall speed order in Princeton with Caroline Lind in 2011, and who more recently took first at NSR I in the W2- with fellow 2008 Olympic champion Erin Cafaro), sits in the six seat of the Cardinal eight, with GB talent Michelle Vezie in stroke, and 2011 U23 world champion Grace Luczak in the five seat, in an eight loaded with elite talent. The Cal boat bo...

As the Williams Ephs gear up for their first test of the season v. St. Joseph's University on March 31st, we bring you the second half of our interview with Williams College women’s rowing head coach, Kate Maloney, covering her thoughts on her development as a coach, how she rose through the ranks, and how the sport has changed at the college level since she began at Northeastern in 2002. (For the first part of this interview, on Maloney's background in the sport and experience as an athlete, click here .) RR: Did you find that coaching grabbed you immediately? Or did you come to like it over time? KM: I am still learning how to coach. It’s an ever-evolving process. I am more confident now than I was in 2003 in my abilities to help kids reach their full potential. But the original spark was being back in that environment, as part of a great coaching staff surrounded by highly motivated athletes. RR: You coached at Yale for quite a while, and found a great deal of success ...

The 2012 Gannon Cup–a match race between rivals University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin–took place on Monday 19 March, continuing a tradition that began in 1947. The cup is named for Ciaran Gannon, who studied Medicine and Surgery at UCD while also competing as a member of the rowing team from 1933 to 1938, serving as Captain in '37 and '38. Upon graduation, Gannon joined the war effort, serving as a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He served in Egypt, India, and Burma, and was killed in action while in Borneo in 1944. The video included below is a documentary on the race, filmed last year during the final stages of training for the 2011 event: The Gannon Cup from Antonio Bonalana on Vimeo . The race is roughly 2k , and is held on the River Liffey , which runs through the heart of Dublin. The women's event, the Corcoran Cup, is held on the same stretch of water, on the same day (the same will be true of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race beginnin...

Spring racing season has begun! (Photo: B. Kitch) The April 2012 issue of Rowing News is on the way, and if you're interested in what to look for this college rowing season–be it IRA teams, NCAA programs, or ACRA and Dad Vail squads–we're giving you an inside take, with input from a number of top coaches around the country, including Virginia's Kevin Sauer and Frank Biller , Charley Butt of the Harvard lightweight men's program, John Fuchs of Western Washington, and Sandy Calfo of Purdue. In addition to our preview of the collegiate rowing season, our cover story–an interview with Harvard men's head coach Harry Parker , now entering his 50th season at the helm of the Crimson squad–details the legendary coach's views on NCAA v. IRA, the origins of seat racing, his team and his legacy. Combine this with advice on how to coach the sprint from three-time Olympian and UCLA women's head coach Amy Fuller Kearney , coverage of the first NSR, the growing scen...

This week's video comes from the 2010 World Rowing Championships in Karapiro. The men's pair was one of the closest races of the year, and, like their counterparts on the women's side, the New Zealand combination managed to hold off the British as they sprinted to the line. The margin? 0.32 seconds. It has been widely speculated that the GB pair of Andy Triggs Hodge and Pete Reed will be reincorporated into a new-look four for the London Games, to defend their gold medal in that event from Beijing on home waters. The two have pressed the Kiwi combo of Eric Murray and Hamish Bond to the absolute limit (see above), but each time the two crews have raced, Bond and Murray have found a way to win. Take last year's final in the M2- from Bled, for example–Hodge and Reed crossed the line in 6:16.27, which is exactly two seconds off the world record set by Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell in Seville during the 2002 World Championships. The only problem: Bond and Murray ...

Williams College on the NCAA Podium in 2011 (Photo: B. Kitch) Like all great athletes, Williams College women’s rowing head coach, Kate Maloney, is driven by a competitive fire that is difficult to define. Often, athletes and coaches speak of finding an outward expression for this urge, but, despite the commonly accepted idea that great athletes should make great coaches, few manage to achieve at the highest level in both capacities. In this respect, Maloney is a rare example, having made a successful transition from athlete to coach following an appearance at the Sydney Olympics that both capped off her competitive career, and kindled a new flame. In Part I of our interview, Maloney speaks with RR about her beginnings in the sport, her growth as an athlete, and the new life in rowing she discovered through her first coaching position. RR: You started rowing as a senior in high school, and, evidently, you were good at it right away. What was it that grabbed you about the sport? ...

The 2012 Head of the River Race is scheduled for this Saturday, 17 March, at 11am. The above video (shot during the 2011 HoRR) is a great example of how to manage the race from start to finish, put together by this Upper Thames RC crew (which started 179th, and finished in 35th overall). The video shows the race in its entirety, and, because of the multiple angles and GPS information, as well as the statistics included (based on the iPhone SpeedCoach app from Nielsen-Kellerman), it provides the viewer with a complete experience of the event–something that might prove a useful in preparation for the weekend. Thanks to Tom for sending us the video! Want to make a suggestion? Shoot us an email at rowingrelated [at] gmail [dot] com, send us your suggestion via Twitter (twitter.com/rowingrelated), or get in touch via our Facebook page. Coming up tomorrow: Part 1 of our two-part interview with U.S. Olympian and Williams College women's rowing head coach, Kate Maloney . -RR

Rowing is about getting the body to perform. If you desire to be an elite athlete, you must treat your body, in many ways, like 'a well-oiled machine.' The less cliché way of putting it is to say that you must take care of it, and make sure it is a finely tuned piece of equipment that will be capable of producing high performance at the desired time. Your body is the vehicle with which you pursue your athletic goals. Of course, it requires an extreme amount of mental discipline and dedication, but I believe each of us has a great deal of control over the shape, size and composition of our bodies. Before we get into it, let me make a few things clear: First, I understand and am aware that there are a lot of pressures and misconceptions about ideal body image/composition, and that there are discrepancies sometime between what is healthy and what people want their bodies to look like—I am sensitive to that reality. I am not recommending a diet or preferred body type. I do, how...

GB Olympic Trials GB Rowing hosted its Olympic Trials over the weekend at Eton Dorney, and the racing featured a number of notable no-shows, some predictable results, and a few surprises. The list of athletes not competing at the event grew throughout the week, and the final tally included both members of the defending world and Olympic champs in the LM2x (this has Rowing Illustrated's Sean Wolf  ready to predict  that New Zealand's Storm Uru and Peter Taylor will take the crown in London), as well as Rob Williams and Richard Chambers (of the LM4-), Hester Goodsell of last year's bronze medal LW2x in Bled, Annie Vernon of the W4x, and several members of the heavyweight men's squad. Despite the long list of absentees, the racing was intense and showed off the depth and top-end speed of the GB squad in the midst of its selection process. Andy Triggs Hodge and Pete Reed took first place in the M2-, as expected, but the field was reshuffled behind the top pair, with...

This week's video comes to us from London, and gives the viewer the coxswain's perspective of just what it took to win the Women's Head of the River Race this year. There is much to be gained from this video in terms of both managing the crew as well as the crew's position on the river, as Thames started 12th, forcing coxswain Hannah Burke to weave her way down the course while striving to give her boat every advantage. The conditions were very challenging coming through Hammersmith and approaching Harrods, as is evident from the video–the crew does well to maintain speed and and stay aggressive, chasing down several more boats before crossing the finish line in front of Putney Bridge. Thanks very much to Hannah for sending us the video! Want to suggest the next 'Video of the Week?' Shoot us an email at rowingrelated [at] gmail [dot] com, send us your suggestion via Twitter ( twitter.com/rowingrelated ), or get in touch via our Facebook page . Coming this ...

The GB Trials scheduled for this coming weekend will feature a couple of notable no-shows, including defending world and Olympic champion in the lightweight men's double, Zac Purchase . Not only will Purchase be on the sidelines for the event, he posted what some feel is a controversial blog entry to his website yesterday, explaining the situation while alluding to his past successes at Trials as well as his hopes for the London Games. The last three years have been difficult for Purchase from a training perspective, as he missed an entire year of competition due to illness following Beijing (also, doubles partner Mark Hunter was taking a year off, coaching with the UCLA women's rowing team in California–more on this in Hunter's RR interview following worlds last year), and since then has battled illnesses at key times, only to come back and deliver again and again when it counts most. Just last year, Purchase missed Lucerne due to illness; Hunter raced to an eighth plac...

The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race is one month away, and the fifth episode in Oxford's six part series on the preparation for the race has been released. This episode covers the relationship between the Boat Race and the media, which can be quite surprising to an American audience–the Boat Race is one of the most well-attended sporting events in London every year, with people lining the banks of the Thames all the way down the 4-mile course from Putney to Chiswick Bridge. The video includes an interview with rowing historian for the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames (and Rowing News contributor) Christopher Dodd . And, as Paul Davies of BBC Sport points out, at the Beijing Olympics alone, nine athletes had competed in the Boat Race on their way to podium finishes on the sport's grandest stage. The lineups for the Blue Boats were announced as of Monday. Cambridge weighed in as the heavier crew, made up almost entirely of internationals (only one British oarsman,...

This week's video comes to us from rowingphotography.co.uk photographer (and RR contributor) Iain Weir , showcasing some of the most fantastic 'race faces,' the roughest conditions, the most miserable mishaps, and devastating crabs ever caught on film. The images are paired with a dramatic reading of Rudyard Kipling's If , and the end result is, well, brilliant. The video asks the question, How do you respond to adversity? And, coupled with the poem, it delivers the answer: Hold on. Want to suggest the next 'Video of the Week?' Shoot us an email at rowingrelated [at] gmail [dot] com, send us your suggestion via Twitter ( twitter.com/rowingrelated ), or get in touch via our Facebook page . Also, updates to come via the Monday edition of the Rowing News eNewsletter ( free to sign up , and you can unsubscribe at any time) and RowingNews.com regarding the Heart of Texas Regatta , held in Austin over the weekend, as well as the Women's Head of the River ...

Source: Press Release/Pocock Racing Shells Educational Conference Aims to Equip Assistant Rowing Coaches with Skills Necessary to be a Head Coach Everett, WA (March 2, 2012): June 26-27 2012 Pocock Racing Shells will be playing host to a select group of the top assistant collegiate rowing coaches in the US. The two-day long program will cover the topics necessary to be successful as a head rowing coach, but that aren’t readily available via the current education options. “We talk to assistant coaches on a daily basis, and more times than not, they start coaching right after graduation and find it difficult to educate themselves on everything that their head coach expects them to know,” says Pocock Racing Shells’ John Tytus. “Without a doubt, this sport gets better with better educated coaches. George Pocock believed that, and was always willing to help out any coach - be it at the shop, on the dock, or in the launch. It’s a core value that we still prioritize 100 years later.” ...

This film showcases a number of the most important coaches in our sport today during their athletic careers, including Paul Reedy , now LW2x coach with Team GB and chief coach of London Rowing Club, in the AUS M2x, Boston University head coach Thomas Bohrer in the USA M4-, and  Robin Williams , now Team GB LM4- coach, in the GB LM8+ (and, funny enough, his biography has been conflated with that of one of his athletes, LRC's Rob Williams , on the FISA website–scroll down to where the current LM4- stroke was, evidently, winning silver at age 3), as well as current Pac-12 rivals Yaz Farooq of Stanford and UCLA's Amy Fuller Kearney , both of whom were competing at their first senior world championships in the USA W8+. The footage is high quality, and includes a great deal of slow motion, providing a very thorough look at the technique employed, as well as serving to emphasize the raw power and dynamism of our sport. These world championships took place at an extremely pivotal p...