Championship Weekend: Recap and Review

Washington takes the MV8 at Pac12s (Photo: © Madeline Davis)
Conference championship weekend has come and gone, and the invitees for the 2013 collegiate national championships have been announced. Before the racing last weekend, we feel back into our old habit of shooting our mouths off about who might be taking top honors across many of the major conferences—and now, it's time to see just how those picks and predictions turned out.

Pac12s

We successfully picked all the medalists for the men's and women's varsity eights, though there we two notable upsets—the California women, whom we picked for silver, were overtaken by Washington, while the Cal men couldn't hold off a hard charging Stanford crew for the silver medal—both Golden Bear crews had to be contented with bronze. As for the second varsity eight, Cal took first ahead of USC (as we predicted), but UCLA fell to fourth behind Washington, while in the varsity four, the Bruins sprinted into second behind our pick to win, Cal, and again Washington made the podium—the Husky women had an excellent regatta in Sacramento, as they begin to make good on the physiological potential in each of their crews. In the men's second varsity eight and men's frosh eight, we were right on the money.


Ivy League Championships & Eastern Sprints

Once again, we successfully picked all the medalists for both the men's and women's varsity eights, albeit with one slight change—Yale took silver ahead of Radcliffe in Camden. As for the second varsity eights, we again picked all six medalists, though it was Brown topping the podium ahead of Radcliffe and our favorite to win, Princeton, on the women's side, while on the men's side, Bruno edged Princeton and top-pick Harvard to win the event. In the women's varsity four, all three of our picks for the medals came through; however, the Bears once again jumbling up our order, winning ahead of Yale and Princeton. The men's frosh eight we were two seconds from perfect, as our top pick Brown fell to Harvard, with Cornell taking bronze as we expected.


Conference USA

Upset city in the women's varsity eight, with our pick for silver, Texas, out-dueling their rivals from Oklahoma to take the title. In the women's second varsity eight, we again picked all the medalists, though Kansas fell to third behind Tennessee, and in the varsity four, we correctly picked first and third (OK and Kansas State), while our pick for silver (Texas) dropped to fifth, as another Lady Vol crew made the podium in second place.


Big East

As we predicted, the Irish swept the regatta, and racked up their 10th straight Big East title. In the women's varsity and second varsity eights, our picks for silver and bronze flip-flopped, with the Orange taking silver in the 1V and Louisville taking silver in the 2V, while our picks for the varsity four came through intact.


 Big Ten

While our top two picks in the women's varsity eight, Ohio State and Michigan, did in fact take first and second, respectively, it was Wisconsin that made good on their early-season potential to take the bronze, with our pick for third, Minnesota, falling to fifth. In the second varsity eight, we were again two-for-three, with OSU taking first ahead of Wisconsin, but with Michigan overtaking Minnesota for the final spot on the podium. The varsity four event saw all of our podium picks medal, though with our pick for silver, Michigan, switching places with Wisco.

All in all, a successful set of picks, and a good warmup for the upcoming IRA and NCAA National Championship Regattas at the end of the month—more predictions and opinions to come, including our take on the lightweight field in Sacramento this season. You can read our original Conference Championship Picks from last weekend here.

-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

So, are Naked Rowing Calendars a Thing Now?

Image
Warwick rowers are all in again this year (Photo courtesy of Warwick Boat Club)  The phenomenon started four years ago with the Warwick Rowing men's squad. Then, the following year, the Warwick women's team joined the fray. Now, Newcastle University's men and women are back on the naked calendar train. So, the question is, have rowing and naked calendars become a thing? The above video features the 2014-2015 Warwick women's squad—the third edition of the calendar , and, from the looks of it, the raciest. However, perhaps not so racy as that of the 2014-2015 Warwick men (see below). But raciness aside, all four of these teams have chosen worthy charities and have gone "the full monty" to make sure that those causes have received considerable contributions. The Warwick women contribute to Macmillan Cancer Support —a cause for which Warwick reports it has donated some £5,000. The Warwick men? Sport Allies —a charity that combats homophobia in spor
Read more