Video of the Week: The Content Cup – Princeton v. Brown



This week's video comes to us, once again, from Princeton, and features the Tiger heavyweight men taking on the Brown Bears. The race begins as a closely fought match between two perennial contenders in the Sprints/IRA field, but Brown shows new speed in the second half of the race, pulling away steadily in the headwind to take the Content Cup. The video is also a contrast in styles–two very different technical approaches at work, made more obvious by their juxtaposition. The result raises a few questions about the Sprints field as we approach championship season, as Princeton raced Harvard to a similar margin in the varsity eight in Boston, while Yale defeated Brown in an early season match-up in very rough conditions in Derby.

In other weekend racing, No. 3 Michigan swept Harvard and Clemson in the NCAA events, winning the 1V, 2V and V4 events ahead of the Crimson and the Tigers, respectively. Texas managed to take the Big 12 Championship again this year, holding off Oklahoma in the points 105-104 to earn the team trophy, despite the Sooners winning the varsity eight event. In southern California, the traditional rivalry race between UCLA and USC saw the Bruins win three of five, falling in the 1V to No. 5 USC by just 2.6 seconds, while dominating the frosh and 2V8s.

The Big Row in honor of Jill Costello took place over the weekend, pitting Cal against Stanford in their traditional rivalry race at Redwood Shores. Video footage of the 2012 Big Row to be posted tomorrow.

Also still to come: 2012 WIRAs Recap and Review, and the U.S. Men's Eight for the Lucerne Olympic Qualifier to be announced later today.

-RR

Trending posts this month

"I Row Crew" — Rowing in 'The Social Network'

Image
Like many of the rowing faithful, I've been keeping up with the saga penned by Dan Boyne about the filming of the rowing scenes in David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network , and I must say I had high hopes going into the film. The first problem I encountered: the phrase, "I row crew." It was uttered so many times before anyone "rowed crew" on the water that I had trouble buying any of it later. It's understandable that the character of Mark Zuckerberg makes that mistake, since he has no idea about the sport. But when the Winklevoss twins themselves utter the phrase several times, one begins to wonder where Boyne was when these lines were not being chopped or changed. Seriously, who says that? As far as the actual rowing goes, the first scene, which has the twins out training in a pair along with the rest of the Harvard squad, is not all bad — it just ends that way. The line, "Those guys are freakin' fast" is certainly every b
Read more

Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? At Marin Rowing Association, Culture is Key

Image
Hands in after training  My alarm goes off—it’s 4:22am.  It’s been a while since I did this. Immediately, I think back to a college dorm room, rolling out of bed and running down the steps to carpool caravan to Marina Del Rey.  Not this time, though. It’s a Tuesday in late September, and I’m heading across the Golden Gate Bridge to Greenbrae, California, where I’ll meet with the Marin Rowing Men’s Masters squad. Fortunately, it’s an unusually warm morning—and when I roll in, the boathouse is already buzzing with activity.  Launch time: 5:10. Heading out into the Bay before dawn The Marin Rowing Association program has both men’s and women’s masters boats competing to win at every event they attend. In the fall, that can only mean one thing: The Head Of The Charles .  The boat that Coach Rodrigo Rodrigues and I spend most of our time with is the Grand Masters eight—average age 60+. But that’s just one of five crews that launched with us that morning. Everyone’s up before 4:30am. So, wh
Read more

The 30 Best Rowing Coaches of All Time, Part 3: The Top 10

Image
The top 10 best rowing coaches, including guess who (Photo © Iain Weir / Rowing Photography ) It's time for the third and final part of our 3-part series on the best of the best in the rowing coaching ranks. These coaches not only command respect based on performance, but have also shown the ability to adapt to new circumstances, build dynasties, and ultimately help shape the trajectory of rowing as a sport. Honestly, it would be easy to extend this series into 10 more posts... But we wouldn't do that to you. As we've said before, the hope is that the following may serve to educate and spark discussion, as both an appreciation of history and of the coaching craft. Also note: As we stated in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, there are few women in this list, but that is a reflection of a general underrepresentation of women in the head coaching ranks in our sport—and indeed (as has been well documented ) a growing number of NCAA sports in the United States.
Read more

Video Of The Week: Holland Beker 2013

Image
This week's video comes to us from the Bosbaan, where the 2013 Holland Beker saw truly elite, international competition over the weekend. Perhaps the most outstanding racing came in the women's single, where the A Final closely mirrored a world championship or Olympic final in recent years—the lineup included two-time Olympic champ Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus, Kim Crow of Australia, New Zealand's Emma Twigg , reigning Olympic champion Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic, another two-time Olympic champion (albeit in the women's eight) in Eleanor Logan , and 2012 Olympic bronze medalist (also in the eight) Chantal Achterberg of Holland.  As it turned out, the final was a wire-to-wire victory for Kim Crow, who looks to be on top form and may be the athlete to beat in this event for the foreseeable future, holding off both Karsten and Twigg in the closing stretch, with Knapkova finishing fourth. Elle Logan had another solid race in a great field, finishing just ove
Read more

10 Rowing Machine Benefits For All

Image
The rowing machine goes back a long way. There have been various (and some very strange) iterations over the years, but the main benefit of the rowing machine has always remained the same: bringing the full-body training experience from the water on land.  Document Table of Contents: These days, with immersive experiences available through streamable workouts and flat screens (or even tablets and smartphones), the distance between land training and training on the water has shrunk. Of course, it's never going to be a 1:1 feeling from the dock to the boat, and rowers (typically with not-great ergs) are apt to point out that 'ergs don't float.' But again, that doesn't decrease their value to the individual, nor to the sport. Basic Rowing Machines Benefits For the uninitiated in the audience, there are some basic (and some very obvious) benefits to rowing machines, from a broad range of cardio and HIIT t
Read more