RowingRelated

Coaching in the rain, October 2011 The above photo is a screenshot from an as yet unpublished short film I've been planning to edit for some time. It comes from a cold, rainy morning in Boston, following the Head Of The Charles in 2011, when Harry Parker and Bill Manning were gracious enough to allow me to ride in the launch during their training sessions. A rain drop obscures the crew in the middle ground, just in front of the port pontoon of the launch. In many ways, this image speaks volumes about the man, and the legend. Already battling illness, Parker was unflinching and, to my eye, seemingly completely unaffected by the cold temperatures and wet weather. Not only that, but the joy that he took in coaching and helping athletes to refine and perfect their craft was, as ever, evident, even on a slow, steady state day recovering from the excitement of the previous weekend. I didn't know Harry Parker well. In fact, I hesitate even to say that I knew him. I might have ...

The second World Rowing Cup of the 2013 season was quite the mixed bag, with a few of the top contenders from the 2012 Olympics in action, and showing no signs of tarnish on the armor. The runaway performance of the regatta, as many expected, came from the Kiwi pair, who set a new best time for the World Cup series, just under 6:16. However, in our eyes, the real stories from the racing in Great Britain were in the women's single, lightweight men's four, and lightweight men's double. In the women's single, Eleanor Logan showed that her results in Sydney were no fluke, and was an impressively close third behind two of the top athletes in women's sculling, Emma Twigg and Frida Svensson . Given those kind of results, it's hard to argue with the idea of simply leaving Logan in the single and building a new eight—this may be just what Terhaar has in mind. Meanwhile, on the men's side, former lightweight (and recent RR interviewee ) John Graves posted a stro...

While the European Rowing Championships took place last month in Seville, it's difficult to call them that when Europe's top team, Great Britain , was not on the premises. And, with somewhat reduced numbers of international crews making their way Down Under to the first of the World Rowing Cups in March, in some ways, this feels like the real beginning to the international season this year—and at the very site of the Olympic Rowing Regatta , no less! Still, even here, it's hard not to take note of the smaller size of the field, with no women's eight event, and only five crews in the men's eight (two of them from GB, one from the Czech Republic , which includes several oarsmen from their 2011 world championships crew and seven of last year's Euro bronze medalists, and crews from Poland —this course will look very familiar to these 2012 Olympians—and France , shown in the training footage above). It will, however, make for a very interesting regatta, with a nu...

The NCAA, IRA, and USRowing Youth National Championships are all in the books, and school's out for the summer. And, for all you scholar-athletes out there, it's the perfect time to start thinking about your summer reading list. Naturally, being that we're pretty into rowing (and likely you are, too), books that involve the sport are generally more appealing. Set on the East Coast of the United States, author Ron Irwin's Flat Water Tuesday tackles more than rowing, though the sport is at the heart of the narrative, and features a Boat Race, or Harvard-Yale Regatta, kind of rivalry between the main character's school, Fenton, and Warwick. Irwin's background includes experience as a rower at Kent School, and his prose draws you into a story that has a sense of awe and mystery, with a tinge of the irony that is born of reflection. The protagonist is one Rob Carrey, a filmmaker who splits his time between Cape Town, South Africa and the Eastern United States (muc...

This is one for the ages. As anyone who has raced at Henley Royal Regatta knows, it's a long course, usually made even longer by headwinds and current. While Belmont Hill grab the early lead, Abingdon's coxswain does an outstanding job, keeping his crew long, focused, and just the right amount of informed, timing the charge perfectly in what was one of the closest races at the regatta that year (though it always seems to come down to inches on the Thames—just look at Harvard's win in the Ladies' Plate over Leander last summer!).  And, speaking of Henley, we're already thinking about just who might be among the top contenders for a little red box this year—more to come on that front soon. Thanks to Duncan for sending it our way! 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 or Google+ pages.

The 2013 USRowing Junior National Championships in Oak Ridge, Tennessee ran the gamut of emotion, from suspense, to sorrow, to utter joy—sometimes all at once. With weather issues affecting schedules, there were some athletes that perhaps didn't have the opportunity they'd hoped for when arriving at Melton Lake Park. Of course, I'm referring to the weigh-in situation, which saw four teams dealing the with the severe repercussions of missing a crucial deadline. In the words of USRowing Board President, and 2004 Olympic champion, Pete Cipollone : Four coxswains out of 164 missed their weigh-in deadlines. Our Youth Nationals is an elite championship. The Rules of Rowing are clear. The referees applied them correctly and dispassionately. Two crews were excluded; two had substitutes available and dodged a big bullet. That is cold comfort to those whose seasons ended with one unfortunate incident. To be excluded for a technicality is an awful thing to deal with as an ath...

This week's video comes to us from the U.S. version of the Thames River, which, fittingly, is host to the Harvard-Yale Regatta —America's most venerable intercollegiate competition. The Crimson lead the series by a significant margin, with 95 wins to Yale's 54 in the varsity eight event, and, most notably, Harvard's Harry Parker has been at the helm for some 45 of those victories (his personal record being 44-7 in the event, including victories in 13 of the last 14 seasons). The video includes a bit of history, as commentators Charlie Hamlin (Harvard alum & Olympian in the men's four in 1968) and Andy Card (Yale's varsity lightweight men's coach) provide some background on the coaching and the event. If history's not your thing, you can skip forward to the beginning of the four-mile race at roughly 12:45. Things have been quite hectic over the past few days, with article deadlines to meet for ROWING Magazine —look for a lengthy upcoming featur...

The racing is already underway at the 2013 USRowing Youth National Championship Regatta in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and while the heats are in the books, there's still ample time to share our thoughts on just how the finals will shake out this weekend. As usual, youth nationals will showcase a broad base of up and coming talent—while we can't cover every event, here's a look at a few that stand out to us: Women's Single Last year's silver & bronze medalists— Elizabeth Sharis (Y Quad Cities) and Cicely Madden of CRI—are back in the mix, and have to be considered among the favorites to land themselves on the podium once again this year. Our top pick to take the event is Sharis, who earned silver in 2012 at just 14 years of age. Adrienne Bielawski (another heat winner) is a further athlete to watch—she has a strong rowing pedigree with her older sister, Nicole, having attended Princeton and competed at junior and U23 Worlds. Men's Single Our two favorit...

The 2013 NCAA Rowing Championships were a mighty struggle for all those involved, not least because of inclement weather in Indianapolis that saw crews foundering and schedules changing at times across the three-day event. Beforehand, we took a look at our preseason picks, factored in the regular season, and gave our opinions about just who'd come out on top in Windy Indy. Now, it's time to take a look back & see how our predictions performed. Another pic from the Champion's podium! @ ohiostate_wrow #GoBucks twitter.com/Brutus_Buckeye… — Brutus Buckeye (@Brutus_Buckeye) June 2, 2013 Division I In the varsity eight, we picked USC, Princeton, and Virginia to medal in Indianapolis. While our pick for silver, Princeton, did in fact take second, UVa fell to fourth overall, with the women of Troy rounding out the final in sixth (a bit of a surprise considering they had been undefeated throughout the regular season, and were Pac-12 champions). Instead, California took g...

Varsity Eights As USRowing quipped , it was a good day to be a Husky in Sacramento—especially a Washington Husky. Not that we'd ever be the types to say we told you so, but our picks for the men's varsity eight turned out as we'd expected, with Washington capping off another undefeated season with a third-straight IRA title. Not far off the pace were the early leaders, Harvard —smooth and composed, but perhaps without the level of horsepower that their West Coast rivals brought to the table. Brown also had an outstanding regatta, as Paul Cooke and new assistant coach Graham Willoughby's crews made the podium in all three eights events—while the varsity may have gotten off to a slow start compared to the rest of the field, their closing speed saw them overtake Northeastern in the final 250m to claim the bronze.

Last weekend was filled to the brim with top-notch collegiate racing. While athletes at the NCAA Rowing Championships were battling through very tough conditions for the first two days of the regatta in Indianapolis, the West Coast enjoyed flat conditions (albeit with high temperatures) on Lake Natoma, and, when all was said and done, the results were very familiar in Sacramento. The varsity eight was the crowning achievement on a second consecutive  Washington Husky sweep of all five races, gutting out extremely narrow victories in the open and varsity fours to set the stage for the eights later in the program. Incredibly close race to the line - looked like @ uwhuskycrew edged @ californiacrew by about a foot for the MV4 title twitter.com/rowingrelated/… — RowingRelated (@rowingrelated) June 2, 2013 While Harvard led out of the gates in the varsity eight, the result was yet another come-from-behind victory for the Huskies, who overcame similar margins in the second 100...