RowingRelated

The GB Rowing squad for Sydney has a slightly different look to it some seven months after its most successful Olympic Games on the water, with coxless four double gold medalists Andrew Triggs Hodge and Pete Reed  (profiled in the above video, shot in 2011) moving into an eight for the first of the 2013 World Rowing Cups, along with fellow 2012 crew mate Alex Gregory . The eight will also feature several athletes from the 2012 bronze medal-winning lineup, in the form of coxswain Phelan Hill , Moe Sbihi , and Tom Ransley . On the women's side, 2012 gold medalist Helen Glover will take on international competition with new pair partner Polly Swann , as Glover's 2012 partner Heather Stanning is back on active duty with the British Army. The new-look duo will also double up into an eight guided by last year's Oxford Blue Boat coxswain Zoe de Toledo . For a full breakdown of the changes for the GB squad at the upcoming World Cup, please visit the official website of British...

This week's video comes to us from the British perspective of the Australian Youth Olympic Festival , and (as usual) includes a healthy dose of off-the-water banter in addition to training on the Nepean River. The GB squad had a fantastic regatta Down Under, with several athletes taking home medals across multiple events—young standouts Jack Beaumont and Luke Moon returned with three medals each, as did lightweights Jamie Copus and Ben Board . On the women's side, Anastasia Chitty and Nicole Lamb accomplished the same feat at the event. Alongside the training footage, this video also takes us through Sydney Harbor, with views of the iconic Sydney Opera House. Sydney is gearing up to host the Sydney International Rowing Regatta, which will include the first World Rowing Cup (March 22-24), as well as the King's Cup and Queen's Cup & Aussie national championships. The U.S. team roster was released last week, and includes many 2012 Olympians, with Grant ...

Cal and Washington at the 2012 Pac-12 Championships (Photo: B. Kitch)  IRA Men 1. Washington Our top pick for 2013 is Washington. The Huskies are stacked, feature an Olympic silver medalist in Conlin McCabe , and recently showed that (despite their relative youth) they are nails, walking away from Cambridge on the Boat Race course (for more on that crew, click here ). At this point in time, UW boasts the best program top to bottom—they are loaded and will be hard to beat in any event. Still, there are new challenges for Washington: the departure of Luke McGee and the new freshman rule may make the frosh event an interesting one this year. 2. California If anyone is going to upset Washington in the varsity eight this year, Cal might just be the one to do it—the Golden Bears have great top-end speed. Led by a strong Serbian talent in Jovan Jovanovic (a sophomore who stroked the eight in the fall and is a Serbian U23 and junior national team member), fellow Serbians Igo...

Agganis Panorama (Photo: © Tom Lynam) The 2013 Crash-B World Indoor Rowing Championships are in the books, and in the midst of many excellent results, three performances stand out from the crowd: first, high school senior Christine Cavallo took top honors in the women's junior lightweight event in a time (7:05.7—a new world record for the event) that would have won the women's open lightweight category, and was eleven seconds off the senior world record set by Ursula Grobler . Meanwhile, in the women's open event, high school senior Ruth Narode took fourth place overall in a very impressive time of 6:52.2. Both Narode and Cavallo are coming off stellar seasons, capped off with silver medal performances at the World Rowing Senior and Junior Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria last summer. Not to be outdone, Ryan O'Rourke , representing Lawrenceville School, took first place in the junior men's heavyweight event in a time of 6:02.4 (down from 6:13.8 in his first...

This week's video comes to us from the University of Cambridge , and showcases the men's and women's rowing programs, with a number of cameos from some very high profile alumni & current students. Among those making an appearance in the film are GB 2008 and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Tom James , two-time Olympian Annie Vernon (silver in Beijing), 2012 bronze medalist George Nash (CUBC president this year), former UW Husky and 2011 U23 world champion Ty Otto (rocking a serious fu manchu), and triple Olympian Sarah Winckless  (bronze in 2004). Also included in the footage are well-known rowing blogger Anna Railton  from the victorious CUWBC crew in 2012 (at 2:09, second from the back—if you've never enjoyed a Railton rant on rowing, be sure to follow this link ), and former Wisco Badger Steve Dudek, who rowed on the winning Cambridge Blue Boat last year and looks to be in the top crew once again this season. While the fixture on Saturday proved a very stern tes...

Washington leads at Hammersmith (Photo: © Tim Koch) Despite traveling roughly 5,000 miles to race on (relatively) unfamiliar waters in London, the University of Washington Huskies were able to take two victories on the Tideway earlier today in their fixture against Cambridge. Both lineups included 2012 Olympians, with Conlin McCabe in the Washington crew, and GB silver medalist George Nash and Milan Bruncvik in the crew from Cambridge. Going into the racing, it looked as though the CUBC crew would benefit from a higher level of experience, with several of the Husky oarsmen having competed as frosh in 2012—though these same Washington athletes are more familiar with the Thames than most American rowers, having won the Temple Challenge Cup last summer at Henley Royal Regatta. Still, this is a tremendously impressive result for Washington, given the unusual race format and the logistics involved—also, the performance of sophomore coxswain Lisa Caldwell is not to be ignored, as the...

1. California  Cal is our favorite to win the NCAA team championship in 2013. Their top-end talent in the varsity eight and team depth we expect will be too great for any other team in the country to handle.  Dave O'Neill  is a very good coach and has a clear understanding of what it takes to construct and manage a championship level team. Every year they are in the hunt, but they have not won since they won back to back team titles in 2005 and 2006. This year's team will be led by  Kara Kohler  who is back for her junior year after taking the 2012 season off to win an Olympic bronze medal in the W4x for the U.S. The Bears will also feature top international athletes  Papa Hipango  from New Zealand,  Rosie Popa  from Australia (though she has American citizenship and has raced at the U23 world championships for the U.S.), German junior national team member  Charlotte Siering , and Norwegian junior national teamer  Ingvild Ronning...

The Washington Huskies have been preparing to send a crew to England for a fixture against Cambridge, set for Saturday 16 February. The fixture will take place on the Tideway on the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race course (from Putney to Mortlake), and will presumably be broken into two parts. While it's not clear as of yet what crew CUBC will send to the line, there is evidence that the Washington squad will be a powerful foe for the Light Blues. Vintage day with the University of Washington :) campl.us/nV3D — Everett Rowing (@EverettRowing) February 9, 2013 The above crew, shown here on 'Vintage Day' courtesy of Everett Rowing, is, quite frankly, stacked. From stern to bow, the Husky lineup appears to be this: Coxswain: Lisa Caldwell , 2012 IRA winner in the frosh eight (new course record), and 2012 Henley winner in the Temple Challenge Cup Stroke: Dusan Milovanovic , rowed on the 2010 undefeated Husky frosh eight, 2010 Henley winner, triple IRA champion in frosh ei...

This week's video comes to us from the University of California, Santa Barbara men's rowing team, and pairs a punchy soundtrack with some intense training on and off the water—as well as a healthy dose of faffing about on land. UCSB Crew is a club program for both men and women, and, like all other clubs, it depends upon alumni donations and athletes' dues to 'stay afloat,' if you'll forgive the pun. Many of us got our start at club programs, and it's important to recognize the hard work and dedication of club rowing athletes all across the country, as the standard continues to rise at the ACRA national championships. For club athletes, there is a true purity of purpose—there is no other incentive to join, and do the work, outside of love for the sport and commitment to team. And, it can certainly lead to great things—in fact, UCLA women's head coach Amy Fuller Kearney got her start in rowing at UCSB, and went on to compete in no less than three O...

When it comes to coaching either a team or an individual, it's best to focus on keeping the message from the coach simple and direct . Obviously, the more complicated things become, the more confusing they can be. As a coach, there are no points or credit given for explaining something in a complex way.  The only thing that matters is whether the athletes improve and row well . In many cases it is best to make sure you are not bogging the athletes down with convoluted descriptions and analogies, and to focus on a clear message. The idea is that the athletes can process this message and execute accordingly, and, ideally, immediately. This applies to drills, workouts, mentality, and the technical approach. The more layers involved or the more complicated a coach makes a technical concept or explanation, the greater the likelihood of confusion or misunderstanding.  Because many of us spend so much time involved in rowing either in our own training, coaching others, or perhap...

Husky Rowing Triathlon 2012 from Washington Rowing on Vimeo . Two words: Winter. Training. The Washington Huskies are "putting hay in the barn" in grand fashion this year, and this video (shot in December, 2012) is further evidence that they are loving every minute of it. Following the traditional erg-run-stadiums triathlon, the Huskies earn 'recovery' food that is likely not at the top of every nutritionist's list—though undoubtedly part of a balanced breakfast (rowers run on Dunkin'). Props to Rick Gherst and the UW coaching staff for putting together another great training video! And, speaking of erging, the MidAtlantic Erg Sprints are in the books. There were some familiar faces doin' work in Alexandria, Virginia over the weekend. Former UVa standout, RR interviewee , and author of our first-ever ' On The Water ' series Matt Miller had another solid performance at MidAtlantics, successfully defending the men's open title in 5:51.8...

Olympic gold and silver medalist Mark Hunter knows a thing or two about rowing, but his appreciation of sports goes beyond boats and oars, extending nearly half way around the world to the San Francisco 49ers . As Hunter (who just arrived in New Orleans) details in his most recent column for the London Evening Standard  entitled, "The 49 reasons why I'm really living the dream," he's been a Niners fan since the late 80s, when San Francisco visited Wembley to take on the Miami Dolphins  in a preseason game—Hunter got to meet some of the players, and later decided to do whatever it took to keep tabs on his favorite team (including staying up into the wee hours to watch the games live with a five- to eight-hour time difference). Leaving the media centre. CK7 posing for us! twitter.com/MarkHunterGB/s… — Mark Hunter (@MarkHunterGB) February 1, 2013 While many rowers don't often look beyond their own sport, it can be very important and useful to have a sense for the...