Radcliffe Wins the Belly!
I don't mean wins the lightweight category, I mean wins the race. Yes, the heavyweight boats in this freshmen race are supposed to be evenly matched, but c'mon, this is a great result for the Black and White. The next fastest boat was the Princeton heavyweights who were 2 seconds back. Princeton, by the way, only had one heavy eight entered so I'd say this is the best they've got. The Princeton lights were the next lightweight boat, 43 seconds behind Radcliffe, with the Georgetown lights another 26 seconds back. Both Radcliffe and Georgetown entered B boats which finished a bit further back in the pack.
That Radcliffe boat must have been smoking. No doubt the freshmen provide a good training partner for the varsity. The key point here seems to be that Radcliffe can bring some of these freshmen into the mix for seat racing this spring, adding speed to the V8 while still keeping a fast freshman eight. Thinking of the Pittsburgh four, this makes me wonder what the average erg score is of the Radcliffe boat. Think it's faster than all of the heavyweights in that race?
Two crews have now thrown down markers this fall - the Princeton varsity and the Radcliffe freshmen. Now, when the snow starts to fall, they'll move inside and begin making or breaking their spring seasons.
9 comments:
That same Radcliffe boat won the Dartmouth Green Monster Frosh Invitational on 4 November. That race also featured evenly-boated crews, including two even MIT lightweight boats that performed fairly well.
all the boats in both races performed well.
I was jumping up and down to see my daughter row in the Radcliffe freshman light eight. Finally the chance to compete with her peers. No longer confused with the cox or introduced as 120 lbs of pure heavyweight. Lightweight women rule!
If they were all even freshmen boats at the Belly, then did that include novice rowers as well? Because if you have a boat containing brand new rowers, even if there are some recruited athletes, then would it be fair to say that your the best combination of athletes at the race?
Yes, the freshmen boats contained novices. Are you referring to my comment about the Princeton heavy eight? I'm guessing that is their best because they only had one boat so there was no second boat to split rowers with. It may also mean that is the only boat they can put out so it's not like they had a huge selection of rowers to choose from. It was a good boat, though, since it was second. The lightweights usually put out "A" boats because not all teams have enough rowers for 2 boats.
I was very happy to see the Radcliffe lights win the Belly! It was very exciting and gives them great motivation going into this winter's training and then this coming spring's racing.
I think that it is only fair, however, to note that the entire Radcliffe freshman 8+ that won the Belly was made up of recruited athletes (according to my sister who rows for Radcliffe) that rowed together all season long. I am not sure it is fair to say that they are better than Princeton's heavyweights (or many of the other boats in the race for that matter) because that boat was made up of walk-ons and recruits mixed together (an even boat).
I believe that there are actually two non-recruited walk on athletes in the Radcliffe freshmen boat, although they both have previous rowing experience. I also heard that half of the Princeton Heavy novice 8 rowed as the 2V at HOTC this year that got 2nd place and also the cox was on the Junior National team that went to worlds in Amsterdam this past summer. So from that I take it the princeton heavy boat should still be fast even if 2 or 3 walkons were mixed in.
Bow 4 and coxswain were non-recruited athletes. While everyone had some experience, the coxswain is a true novice.
It's her first year as a coxswain but she did row for radcliffe for two years
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