RowingRelated

Source: Press Release/Alexandria Crew Boosters Esther Lofgren (third from left) on the podium in London (Image courtesy of Alexandria Crew Boosters) World’s 2nd largest indoor rowing competition scheduled for T.C. Williams High School this Saturday, February 2nd ALEXANDRIA, VA – Over 1,600 adult and student athletes will descend on T.C . Williams High School in Alexandria this Saturday, February 2nd, for the 28th MidAtlantic Erg Sprints, an annual event that has grown to become not only the second largest indoor rowing competition in the world, but one that will this year feature Olympic and Paralympic rowers, as well. The rowers are: Esther Lofgren , who won a gold medal as a member of the 2012 U.S. Olympic women’s rowing team in London this past summer; Sam Stitt , who rowed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and is now the varsity lightweight rowing coach at Georgetown; Emma Preuschl , who won a silver medal as a member of the 2008 U.S. Paralympic women’s rowing team in Beijing an...

The above video comes to us by way of California Rowing Club head coach Bernhard Stomporowski , and gives us a window into the CRC side of national team training camp down at Chula Vista , from January 6-27, 2013. Not only do we get a glimpse of this year's invitees doing some work in fours, but we're also invited on land for erg work supervised by newly appointed men's national team coach Luke McGee . USRowing released the full list of athletes invited to the Chula Vista training camps on both the men's and women's sides last week, with the (mostly) lightweight men's camp set to run from February 7-17. For the men, the camp included an NFL Combine -style assessment, as evidenced by some furious activity on Twitter: 20yrd sled push. @ usrowing @ coachlukemcgee @ rowingwolf7 @ rowingrelated twitter.com/volp/status/29… — bryan volpenhein (@volp) January 23, 2013 Also making an appearance in the film (not listed by USRowing but present representing CRC...

We were deeply saddened to hear that Beijing silver medalist and two-time Boat Race champion coxswain, Acer Nethercott , has passed away at the age of 35. Nethercott had an extraordinarily successful career in rowing. The above video shows the final strokes of the 2003 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race (Nethercott's first win in the main event), which was arguably the greatest Boat Race in history. The verdict after 4 and 1/2 miles? Oxford, by one foot. At the 2008 Olympic Games, Nethercott guided the GB men's eight to a close second place finish behind Canada , edging the United States into third place. Acer is Latin for sharp, keen, sagacious . In the words of GB Olympic gold medalist Garry Herbert , "[It was a] privilege to have known him, he lived up to the meaning of his name in every way." The former Molesey Boat Club cox will be dearly missed, but his life and accomplishments will not be forgotten. Read more about Acer's outstanding rowing career on...

Earlier today, Rowperfect UK  announced their awards for Rowing Blogger of the Year across a series of categories, and it's my great pleasure to announce that RowingRelated was named the best 'General news' blog of 2012 in a truly outstanding field, which included the institution that is row2k , (my friend, former teammate, and RR interviewee ) Iain Weir's Rowing Journal , and the official blog of British Rowing . Thanks very much to Rebecca Caroe and Rowperfect for bestowing such an honor! Also recognized were Göran Buckhorn's Hear The Boat Sing , which was selected as the top Rowing History blog, and Rory Copus' The Coxswain's Perspective , in the 'Coxing blog' category. The top 'Athlete blog' was Girl on the River by Patricia Carswell, while the top 'Coaching blog' went to Chelsea Dommert's Coaching the Cox , and Caroline's Rowing Blog took top honors among 'Ergo blogs.' RowingRelated is a collaboration, ...

This week's video gives us an inside look at the Syracuse men's Florida training camp, mixing in some nice on-the-water shots with a few descriptive sequences from outside the training regimen. Looks like the Orange had a productive trip, with plenty of time to relax and soak up the warmth before heading back indoors upon their return home. It's a fairly quiet time in the rowing world, as the Northern Hemisphere prepares to embark on yet another indoor season following the holidays, and with the Australian Youth Olympic Festival Down Under now in the books. The 2013 AYOF was a great success, and provided a solid preview of the next generation of Aussie, Kiwi and British Olympians, including sculling standouts Luke Moon and Jack Beaumont of Team GB. For a detailed discussion of the athletes, check out our friend Daniel Spring's ( @fatsculler 's) preview of the event on RowingJournal.com , and for complete results , please visit the official website of the AYO...

Feeling the flow (Photo: RR)  We have all had it happen to us at some point, whether as an athlete or as a coach or maybe just life in general— you find yourself in a slump of some kind .  Maybe you don't feel confident, or maybe you have confidence but are just out of your rhythm, and it is affecting your performance. When this happens to us, often we can't pinpoint why.  We see it in professional sports all the time . It could be a baseball player who hasn't had a hit in his last 10 games, a pitcher who just can't hit the strike zone, a basketball player who can't make her free throws, a rower who is just struggling to get in shape or any one of a number of other examples. What do you do when you get stuck in a rut and just can seem to figure out why? How do you get your groove back? On the flip side, we all know what it feels like when we are doing well . We have confidence, feel like it just comes naturally with ease and we maybe even feel a bit invincibl...

WinterCamp from Washington Rowing on Vimeo . The Washington Huskies spent their winter training camp in sunny Southern California, and, judging from the above video, there was no shortage of work being done. Taking center stage this year is Canadian Olympic silver medalist Conlin McCabe , who is shown in the stroke seat of both a straight four and an eight—leading by example and setting the tone for the Husky squad this season. While it's going to be tough to out-perform last year's team, which set several records en route to sweeping the IRA Regatta, if there's any team out there ready to do it, it appears to be the 2013 Washington men. Speaking of, it's nearing that time of year once again where we shoot our mouths off and make some picks and predictions for the coming season. Stay tuned! 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/rowingre...

January 2013 issue & Photo Annual  While January has been marked by furious activity on RR building up to the announcement of our first contest winner, I'm also fully immersed in putting together the next series of articles for Rowing Magazine , which is (rather impressively) entering its 20th year in print. Still, in the midst of all this, I wanted to take a minute to climb up on my soap box one more time and say how pleased we were with the success of the RRecruiting Video Contest  (view the top five videos here )—its maiden voyage couldn't have gone better, and we were, frankly, quite impressed with the quality of work we received. So, there you have it. We hope you all enjoyed the contest as well—we are already brainstorming for the next go round—and we are looking forward to another great season of racing, now nearly upon us! In the meantime, I trust those of you out there who are Rowing Magazine subscribers are getting a kick out of the beautiful 2012 Phot...

And the winner is... Jacksonville University Rowing ! The above video is a fantastic introduction not only to the sport, but also to the facilities and the philosophy of the JU program as a whole, touching on those aspects of rowing that can help to shape your character, and, indeed, the rest of your life. Not only does it talk training and the team, but also it addresses the academic environment for student-athletes while attending Jacksonville University. The video does this by means of interviews with both student-athletes and coaches, giving the viewer a window into all levels of the program, and is also one of few submitted for our contest to show both indoor rowing and training on the water. The primary narrator, Brad Negaard , is a benefactor of the program, a former JU coach, and son of Robert Negaard (inventor of the wing-rigger )—the current JU boathouse bears his family name . Clearly, a great deal of thought went into the production of this film, which is b...

The above video is our pick for No. 2 overall, and it's easy to see why—making use of innovative camera angles and representing every available boat class, this video is a solid introduction to the sport, from the junior to the elite level. The video was submitted by Clemens Obrecht , who explains that "[ WSV Ottensheim ] rowing club has been the most successful club at national competitions for the last few years and also brought out outstanding international rowers—for example, the under-23 world champion of 2012 in the women‘s double sculls, Lisa Farthofer , and the winner of the World Rowing Cup in Munich 2012 in the lightweight men’s quadruple sculls, Dominik Sigl ." The video was created by canoeist Erwin Trummer , and it's now used as a recruiting tool in Austrian schools to help promote and grow the sport of rowing. Thanks very much to Clemens for sending along the video, and congrats for being named our second overall pick! Tomorrow marks the official ann...

Henley2012 from Washington Rowing on Vimeo . The countdown continues! Our pick for No. 3 overall is a fantastic video of the Husky frosh racing at Henley Royal Regatta last summer, thanks to Washington men's assistant coach Rick Gherst . While it's not a recruiting video in the traditional sense, showing potential Huskies both the level at Washington and the opportunity to compete overseas will certainly go a long way toward convincing the next generation of UW oarsmen to make the Conibear Shellhouse their home away from home. Above all, it's high quality, well edited & features excellent rowing—what more could you want? Thanks to Rick for submitting the video, and great work! Tomorrow, we'll post our pick for No. 2 overall, with the winning video to be posted on Monday as our VOTW. -RR

'Up two!' (Illustration: B. Kitch) What follows is Part Two of Joe Abrams's narrative, documenting his experience racing at the 2012 Masters National Rowing Championships in Worcester, Massachusetts:  The Big Day The next day, Saturday, we were well rested and on the road early—our first heat was one of the first events that day. To reach our goal of a podium finish at nationals in the “C” event, we’d need to survive not one, but two rounds of heats and a final—three races in a seven hour span, all in high heat and humidity. There were 23 crews entered for the “C” event, twice as many as the “A” event; and the “C” crews would also be much faster than the previous day’s “A”s; and, on average, 10 seconds faster based on the previous year’s “C” times at nationals. The top three boats from each heat would make it through to a semi-final, and then the top three from each semi would qualify for a 6 boat Final. Complicating our racing strategy was the unpredictable wea...

Thanks to all those who participated in our first-ever RR video contest and helped to make it a success! Today we begin our countdown to our top pick for the best rowing recruiting video, and winner of our December contest, with our pick for No. 5 overall. The above video comes to us courtesy of Wyatt Harrell of Capital City Rowing , and does well to showcase the sport, the team and the environs in Tallahassee. Great work Wyatt and congrats on being named to the top five! Tomorrow we will announce the No. 4 overall video from our contest, with the second half of Joe Abrams's 'Game of Inches: Masters Nationals 2012' to be posted on Friday. Our No. 3 and No. 2 videos are coming up this weekend, with the winner to be announced and featured as our VOTW on Monday, 7 January, 2013. -RR

The above video showcases the beauty of sculling, and is a great Video Of The Week to kick off the New Year. Estonian standout Jüri Jaanson —Estonia's most successful rower and a two-time Olympic silver medalist (Athens in the M1x and Beijing in the M2x along with Tonu Endrekson )—shows off a little of his smooth sculling technique for which he was known throughout his career, which spanned six Olympiads. Thanks very much to Marek for submitting the video! It's 2013, and that means we're getting ready to announce the winner of our December rowing recruiting video contest —the winning entry will be posted as our VOTW on Monday, 7 January. Thanks to everyone for all your submissions and good luck with your off season training! Also, coming up this Friday is Part Two of Joe Abrams's account of Masters Nationals, 2012 . 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 ( ...