RowingRelated

This week's video comes to us from the still-wintry climes of the Northeast, where the Bulldogs of Yale took on  Brown  men's heavyweight crew over the weekend. The video, shot from the launch, may not have sound, but the result was a resounding early season victory for the visiting team on the Seekonk River (though the race was tighter than the times would indicate—the Bulldogs were leading by a length until a crab by Brown slowed the crew down in the final 200m).

Washington hoists the Pac-12 varsity eight trophy, 2014 (Photo: B. Kitch) The 2015 IRA field looks very familiar, though the power struggle at the top may just yield different results this time around. The margins were slimmer last season for the Washington Huskies, but the Ten Eyck results were just the same. Can anyone stop the Huskies this spring?

Pac-12s 2014 (Photo: B. Kitch) Spring racing season is upon us. Yes, the ice is melting (finally), and crews are back on the water in gearing up for another great year. Before we kick things off in earnest at Crew Classic, however, we'd be remiss if we didn't share our thoughts on just how this year's NCAA Rowing field stacks up. Here are the first official RowingRelated NCAA Rankings for 2015.

The calm before the storm in Putney (Photo: B. Kitch) What is supposed to be the annual statement of winter training for most UK clubs has been missing something vital for the past two editions: a completed race! Not deterred by the recent cancellations, 345 crews are scheduled to take to the championship course on Sunday—a figure well down on the 420 who used to fill the entry, however. The fickle nature of exchange rates are thought to be an additional factor in this reduction, as seen by the reduced overseas entries, further to the uncertainty that the recent cancellations have brought.

For Dinares, it begins with how you approach the oar (Photo courtesy of Carlos Dinares)  Carlos Dinares is already a household name in many elite rowing circles, because the athletes he coaches tend to be fast. Examples? South African phenom Ursula Grobler set the lightweight women's world record for 2,000m on the erg, and has competed for the U.S. as well as the RSA national team. And, most recently, double Olympic champion sweep rower Elle Logan made the A Final at the world championships in Chungju in her first year sculling at the international level. Here, Carlos shares some insight into his approach through the below video, made specifically for our 'Best Rowing Drills' series, and outlines two ways to help understand technique better, on and off the water. 1: How We Greet The Oar "The first part is about how we think, and act, when we greet the oar," Dinares says. "It's about how we connect the handle, which is our connection to the water...

#500daystogo = 500 days to row (Photo: B. Kitch) Today marks 500 days to go until the Rio 2016 Olympics, and the social interwebs are alive with anticipation. That goes for the rowing world, too. Yesterday, Fitness First  (UK) released the below video, featuring 2012 Olympic champion Helen Glover , alongside two of her Team GB peers, 2012 silver medalist swimmer Michael Jamieson and Olympic champion in Taekwando, Jade Jones .

This week's video offers an intense look at life as a member of Oxford University Boat Club . The crews for the 2015 Boat Races were announced on Friday, and this year's event will be historic in that it will be the first time that the men's and women's races have been held on the Tideway together on the same day. While there's evidence that the Cambridge men and women have made strides over the course of their winter training, so far the bookmakers and the pundits agree that Dark Blue is the favored colo(u)r to win again this year.

Megan Kalmoe in the single (Photo: Nikki Raab) The first three of articles in our 'Best Rowing Drills' series have focused on the view from the launch, so we thought it was time to flip the script—here, we check in with two-time Olympian and London 2012 bronze medalist Megan Kalmoe about her approach to skill and drill on the water. Kalmoe began her rowing career at the University of Washington, and earned her first international bid with the U.S. U23 team in 2005, winning gold in the BW4- in Amsterdam. Since then, Megan has more often raced with two oars, switching to sculling and competing at the Olympics in Beijing and then in London, the latter of which saw her win a bronze medal in the U.S. W4x along with teammates Kara Kohler , Adrienne Martelli , and Natalie Dell . Last season, Kalmoe switched back to one oar, and earned a silver in the women's pair with Kerry Simmonds at the 2014 World Rowing Championships. Here are a few of her favorite exercises to develop ...

This week's video features the defending national champion Washington Huskies getting after winter training with abandon, and champing at the bit for spring racing season. While 2014 may have been the season of the 'underdawg,' make no mistake that the Huskies have taken on new challenges for 2015, including an early-season visit to Providence to race Brown on the Bears' home water. In speaking with Husky men's head coach Mike Callahan for an upcoming issue of ROWING Magazine, it was clear that he and the Dawgs have a clear sense of purpose this season, and for good reason— the Huskies have the chance to do something that has never been done in the Intercollegiate Rowing Association era: to win five-straight varsity eight titles. To find the only instance of a team winning more than four-straight national championships, you have to go back to the days of the RAAC (that's the Rowing Association of American Colleges), when Cornell won six straight from 188...

Linda Muri in the launch at Dartmouth (Photo courtesy of Linda Muri) Longtime Crimson lightweight men's coach and newly appointed Dartmouth women's head coach Linda Muri knows how to move a boat effectively and efficiently. She combines an MIT-based knowledge and understanding of rowing mechanics with teaching savvy (Muri earned a Masters in Education at Harvard in 1997) as a coach—and did we mention that she's a three-time world champion (and nine-time U.S. national team) rower? Here, Muri shares three of her favorite multipurpose drills, useful on the water or on land. 1. Inside Arm Only "Probably one of my favorite drills is inside arm only. I use it a lot for the catch," she explains. "They get a very nice catch because they can't muscle it in—they can't force the blade in. They can hear what it's supposed to sound like, and feel what it's supposed to feel like, and then they have to hold onto that as they go back to regular rowing...

Stage Afrique du Sud 2015 - Hommes poids léger by AvironFrance This week's video comes to us from South Africa, where the French men's lightweight national team recently held a training camp in warmer climes. The video features standouts Jérémie Azou and Stany Delayre in the men's lightweight double, and some excellent sweep rowing from the LM4- ( Onfroy Theophile ,  Franck  Solforosi , Guillaume  Raineau , and Clement Duret ) that finished a very close fourth place in Amsterdam, just 0.28 seconds from the podium. For those of you in the audience with a knowledge of French, there are interviews interspersed amongst the rowing shots, and for you coaches out there, the sequence beginning at 4:40 includes a start sequence in the straight four. And for more from Aviron France , check out their recent video from their heavyweight sweep squad training camp in Temple-sur-Lot here . Thanks very much to Hugues for sending along the videos! Have a submission for 'Video ...

The GB men's eight celebrates in Amsterdam (Photo courtesy of Phelan Hill) The following piece comes to us from GB Olympic bronze medalist and current world champion  Phelan Hill , who guided the British men's eight to their first-ever world championship title in Chungju . Here, he recounts the journey through the 2014 season, which saw the GB men defend their title in Amsterdam. From Phelan: In 2013 I was lucky enough to be part of the GB men's eight that travelled to Chungju in Korea, making history in becoming the first eight from Great Britain to win the World Championships. This year we travelled to Amsterdam with the aim of defending our title, and becoming world champions for the second successive year.

Mike Teti and Cal at Crew Classic, 2013 (Photo: B. Kitch) Talk to former U.S. Olympic rowing coach and current Cal men's head coach Mike Teti about drills, and you'll understand that it's about addressing specific problems in a methodical way. "Instead of saying what are my favorite drills, it's more what do I think the limiting technical factor of a given group is," he explains. "So we'll do a series of exercises that will help fix that problem. That's the approach that I take." He continues: "That said, for specific problems there are certain exercises that I think are really useful. You could say they're favorites [within that context]." The faster the boat class, the more the catch and the front end of the rowing stroke becomes paramount. If you're looking to work on the front end of the stroke, there are a few such favorites that Teti often uses with his crews. 1. Pause at Gunwale Pauses, in general, tap into ...

The calm before the storm at Agganis Arena, Boston (Photo: A. Gutierrez) While the there was no shortage of drama in the men's open final at the 2015 Crash-B Sprints World Indoor Rowing Championship, the deepest field, and most impressive performances overall, came from the junior women. I hesitate to say junior, because, as has seemingly become the norm at Crash-Bs, there was nothing 'junior' about these performances. And while there was one result that absolutely topped them all—the phenomenal 6:30.2 from Greece's Sophia Asoumanaki  (roughly 13 seconds faster than open women's champion  Kaisa Pajusalu of Estonia, who won Crash-Bs for the third time on Sunday)—the field was the deepest in Boston as well, with no fewer than seven women under seven minutes. (Not that we need to let any NCAA recruiters know that stat.)