Video Of The Week: Long Beach Juniors Train for Glory



This week's video comes to us courtesy of the Long Beach Junior men's squad, and details their training leading up to their victory in the eight at the 2014 USRowing youth national championships. Despite winning both the heavyweight four and pair at Southwest Regionals, the LBJC coaching staff and athletes elected to bring the eight (which had finished a distant third in their region, some nine seconds off the pace). Evidently, they were onto something. From the get-go at nationals, it was clear that LBJC had found an extra gear in the eight, posting one of the fastest times of the regatta in the heat (and this with a 10-second lead and no need to push). (For a complete recap from the 2014 youth national championships, plus race video clips, see our race coverage here.)

Now, LBJC athletes Luke Khoury and Allen Reitz are representing the U.S. in the JM2- in Hamburg, while Izak Epstein is racing in the JM4-. The junior men's pair has a field of 26 crews and a very high standard, with Germany looking like favorites to repeat (albeit with a new crew), having set the fastest qualifying time today (an impressive 7:04). The U.S. duo qualified in fourth place in their heat.

Keep up to date with everything happening in Hamburg via our Twitter feed and the official website of World Rowing.

Thanks very much to Izak for sending us the video! Have a submission for 'Video Of The Week?' Shoot us an email at rowingrelated [at] gmail [dot] com, send us your suggestions via Twitter, or get in touch via our Facebook or Google+ pages.

-RR

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