Fight in the Dog

The Time is Nigh

2007-06-05T05:37:00.001-04:00

For two years I've offered my opinions about this sport. I've been honest, consistent, and willing to admit when I've been wrong. I've never censored your comments. I've said uncomfortable things that have needed to be said and I've made enemies of many people who wish no one would challenge their actions or their opinions. I've written all of my posts with a smile on my face because, let's face it, this is just a blog.

Now, as promised, my time is up. Those of you who have your own opinions about women's lightweight rowing - the floor is yours.

But remember, it's just a game.

FITD - R.I.P.

[Update: New Georgetown coach: "We're going to be just like Bucknell." Has Bucknell doomed women's lightweight rowing for the sake of a coach's resume?]

[1/09 Update: The new CRCA Lightweight Committee Chair is Princeton HEAVYWEIGHT coach Lori Dauphiny!! What a joke! Yup, they're interested in keeping lightweight rowing alive. One thing's for sure, Dauphiny can spell NIMBY.]

Bucknell's Methods and Lightweight Rowing

2007-06-04T05:52:00.000-04:00

Observers of women's lightweight rowing have to be wondering today what Bucknell's method of having heavyweights drop to lightweight for IRAs will mean for other programs. As I mentioned before, I was told that last year's Bucknell light eight had problems with weight. Bucknell's solution, apparently, was to race them as heavyweights and only require them to drop weight three times during the season (presumably timed for lulls in the competitive schedule).

I find two serious problems with this. First, Bucknell, which could lead the lightweight community, has instead chosen to use the lightweight community. While other programs spend the time and money necessary to create separate programs and race schedules separate from their heavies, Bucknell does none of that and simply goes pot hunting at IRAs. It's obvious, but worth saying, that if every other lightweight crew did what Bucknell does, there would be no lightweight league and no IRA championship. There would be no Dad Vail, Windermere, Knecht Cup, Crew Classic, ECAC (oops, that's already gone with Bucknell racing only heavyweights there), or Sprints lightweight events. While other programs put their blood, sweat, and money where their mouths are, Bucknell apparently sees the lightweight category as simply another way to burnish resumes.

Bucknell's manipulation of the category is further highlighted by the fact that last year, when the student newspaper was writing about the "light eight," the coaches asked the paper not to refer to them as lightweights, but to call them the "2V." Is this a program that supports lightweight rowing?

The second problem with the Bucknell method, is that the strategy of dropping heavyweights for key lightweight races is exactly the kind of thing for which the category is criticized and which the NCAA finds unsavory. Clearly the leaders of the lightweight category also find this unsettling. Last year, when I repeated the false rumor that in 2004 Wisconsin dropped two heavyweights into the light eight for IRAs, it was met with instantaneous and emphatic denial from the Badgers. UCF, although actually racing a lightweight schedule, was faced with the same opportunity as Bucknell to pull down some of their heavies into the light eight, but chose not to. For better or worse, the coaches there made the decision to allow their rowers to race in only one category. With Bucknell, however, we have a national champion who may not even field a lightweight eight next year. Will they have enough lightweights and near-lightweights to field a full eight? Will they be fast? If not, will they enter anyway in support of the category or will they take their ball and go home?

Let me quote instructions that went out from the CRCA lightweight committee with last year's new weigh-in rules:

The goal of the weigh-in documentation is to ensure that crews racing at the collegiate lightweight women's National Championship have been racing as lightweights with consistency throughout the season.

Clearly this procedure failed this year, and one must wonder if it needs to
be revised for next year.

While we're at it, let's dispose of the silly notion, put forth both last year and this, that Bucknell somehow makes faster lightweights by racing them as heavyweights. Any athlete would know this is spurious - it doesn't matter what your opponent is, it matters how fast your opponent is. Perhaps those making the argument are suggesting that no lightweights exist fast enough to challenge Bucknell, yet that was obviously not true last year, and this year when Bucknell raced the Princeton lights, a crew that just pushed them to the limit, they raced heavyweights. Is that supporting the category?

Bucknell is at a crossroads; it can become a leader of lightweight women's rowing or it can continue to ride on the back of the programs that actually do support and maintain the sport.

What's it gonna be?

Bucknell Ends Wisconsin's Streak

2007-06-03T09:09:00.000-04:00

Proving the old adage that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, Bucknell won the national championship by 3.5 seconds over second place Princeton. Wisconsin was another 1 second back, followed by Radcliffe, Stanford, and Georgetown.

In a race that, while still close, sorted itself out surprisingly quickly, Princeton and Bucknell fought a seesaw battle through 1000 meters. Through the third 500 Bucknell began to assert itself and once Princeton hit its personal dead zone - the sprint - the Bison pulled away to take the crown. It would surely be a compliment to say that Bucknell rowed a Wisconsin-like race - entering the lead pack early, allowing one or two other crews to believe they have a chance, and finally closing the door on the field through the last 500. Wisconsin occasionally threatened to make it a three boat race, but was never quite able to pull back until the very end.

As Bucknell and Princeton entered the last 500 meters, the Bison, with half a length or so lead, must've felt confident of the win, knowing the Tigers' problems with the sprint. Anyone who watched Princeton in a close race over the last two years knew what would come next - rushed slides and short strokes - as they lost ground to Bucknell ahead, and saw Wisconsin charge up their stern. If Princeton could fix this flaw, they'd be truly dangerous. Bucknell, meanwhile, showed no such flaws as they rowed a clean race from start to finish, looking as strong in the last 20 strokes as they did in the first.

MIT once again took the petite final, a nice turnaround from where the Engineers' season seemed to be headed just a few weeks ago. Ohio State finished after MIT, followed by LMU, UCF, Long Beach State, and Lehigh. It was great to see three California crews make the trip east and when the IRA moves west, hopefully all of the eastern crews will reciprocate.

So the lightweight field grows even stronger and crowns a brand new national champion. After all of the lightweight haters had their say about the lack of competition a few weeks ago, it's instructive to compare heavyweight and lightweight championship finals. The times are remarkably similar. Eleven seconds separated the field at IRAs while seven seconds separated it at NCAAs. (In fact, Bucknell's raw time was faster than Yale's raw time. I point this out not to suggest that Bucknell is faster, only to further make the point that spreads were very comparable.) This is really quite remarkable given how the proliferation of heavyweight programs and the abundance of scholarship money has spread the talent around the heavyweight world. Any such dispersion of talent naturally results in more crews of similar speed, but lightweights have had none of that.

The 2007 season ends without controversy and with a clear cut, if surprising, champion in Bucknell. Princeton, whose season began so promisingly, comes away with a gold in the four (which surprisingly turns out to be the only gold won by any Princeton crew at a national championship race). Wisconsin and Radcliffe move out of the dreaded "rebuilding year" and become major threats on the horizon, as does Stanford. Georgetown remembers how difficult it is to follow up on success. Another season down, an even stronger one on the way.

Princeton Rules the Four... Again

2007-06-02T10:07:00.001-04:00

After rarely racing the boat all season, and almost missing out on an invitation to the race, Princeton boated a four at IRAs yesterday that staked its claim to fastest four in the nation. Winning the gold (yes, there were medals even if the correct ones will be coming in the mail) by 6 seconds over second place Wisconsin, and almost 13 seconds over third place Lawrence, the Tigers were emphatic in their statement of speed.

Princeton was somewhat less emphatic off the start, however, as they found themselves in third or fourth place after 20 strokes. As the 500 approached, the nature of the race began to become clear with Wisconsin up on Princeton by 3 or 4 seats, and Lawrence maintaining contact in third. Princeton put on what turned out to be the decisive move just after the 500 as they pulled even with the Badgers, who had no response. With every stroke moving them a few inches farther away from Wisco, Princeton just cranked it up to the finish line.

It was a nice row for the Tigers who were handed nothing by Wisconsin and Lawrence. Wisconsin also had a nice race, but just couldn't stay with Princeton. These boats were no doubt rowing together for only a few weeks so a fast race like this shows some skill and determination. Lawrence, on the other hand, showed that a small club program can hang with the big dogs. More than hang, they beat two Sprints schools and capped off a fantastic season. Judging by their margin over fourth place Duquesne (8 seconds here vs. 5 at Dad Vail), Lawrence stepped up it's speed over the last few weeks. They'll have a happy drive back to Appleton. Duquesne should also be proud of their season, also beating two Sprints schools (Georgetown and Radcliffe) in finishing fourth.

While there was a large spread within the field, some of that was certainly due to a bit of a late notice for the race (so not all invitees could make it) and the six boat only final. With more entries and heats, this race could certainly become an exciting addition to the regatta. As it was, this year's race was one of the more interesting on the schedule, although that was mostly because of the "unknown" factor.

The biggest loser of the race was absent Pitt. Certainly all of the competitors would like to have seen Pitt in the field, and with Princeton beating Pitt's Dad Vail margin over Lawrence by 5 seconds, the Tigers have every right to claim to be the fastest four in the land. In an ironic twist of fate, Princeton only got an entry slot because Pitt declined their invitation. To be sure, I doubt Pitt's absence was a case of the Panthers running from a fight, but with late notice of their invitation the crew just couldn't rearrange schedules to get to the regatta. That's too bad because it would've been a heck of a race.

IRA Eights

2007-05-30T19:41:00.000-04:00

Switch Princeton and Radcliffe, and we enter IRAs in a similar position to that of last year. Wisconsin coming off a Sprints win, Princeton (Radcliffe last year) coming off a strong regular season but with only a silver medal at Sprints, and Georgetown gaining speed throughout the season to finish third at Sprints. It all made for a rather unpredictable national championship regatta.

The favorites in this year's first heat are Wisconsin and Georgetown. Radcliffe probably has the best opportunity to send one of those two to the reps, especially now that they are able to bring the freshmen fully into the mix. Loyola Marymount will get a feel for an Ohio State crew that knocked off Long Beach State at Dad Vail, while MIT, which has struggled in the V8 this year, will see if it has a shot at the grand final.

The second heat may be the more difficult of the two, with Princeton and Stanford, two crews close in speed, facing UCF, Bucknell, Lehigh, and Long Beach State. UCF is a relative unknown, having last raced at Windermere in mid-April. Bucknell is a complete unknown, since they only boated a light eight twice, neither time against any crews at IRAs. Bucknell only lost a couple of athletes from last year's boat, but apparently some of last year's lightweights had some weight issues and may have made a permanent move to heavyweight. This will be a good test for LBS since although they've beaten Lehigh before, they haven't faced competition at the level of Princeton and Stanford. Lehigh gets a chance to show what they've learned from their Dad Vail experience. Of Stanford and Princeton, I actually think the Tigers may be in the most danger of finding themselves in the reps. Stanford is getting faster but having lost to Princeton before, will want to make sure no one sneaks up on them for second. If Princeton snoozes at all, they fall behind Stanford and are then worried about trying to stay ahead of Bucknell and UCF, two crews who could make a run at them. Sounds unlikely, but it happened to Wisconsin last year.

It's hard to imagine a final without Wisconsin, Georgetown, Princeton, and Stanford. Given Radcliffe's new pool of talent (even if there are no new faces in the boat), I suspect they'll pick up speed and make the grand. The battle for last place in the final should be a dog fight, and it's hard to call it now. Thanks to Stanford, I would guess that either Bucknell or UCF will race the petite after making last year's grand, but in no way is it a foregone conclusion that one of those two makes it in.

If we're completely honest about how the field looked at the beginning of the season, we'll admit that it looked weak. Other than Princeton, that is. While Wisconsin lost five from last year's boat, and everyone else lost at least two, Princeton lost none. None, by the way, from a boat that beat the Badgers in the heat in 2006. If this isn't the year of the Tiger, when will it be? Somehow, though, Princeton finds itself an underdog. The Tigers no doubt know what their issues are, and if they spent the last few weeks making some technical corrections and seat racing with that fast 2V, they could blow away the field. If they simply did pieces, they're in for disappointment. Wisconsin comes in with a young crew (four sophomores), but as the favorite. Their speed this year not only puts them in position to win their fourth national championship, but suggests that the string won't end this year. Stanford, meanwhile, could surprise everyone. With an even younger crew of three freshmen and one sophomore, the Cardinal is in a position to make a sustained run at the national championship. [Update: See comments for more information on the latest boatings.]

All signs point to another tight final this year, and given last year's surprising turn of events, just about anything can happen.

IRA Fours

2007-05-29T19:15:00.000-04:00

The addition of the four to the IRA, even as an exhibition, is a great step forward for women's lightweight rowing. I don't know what will be used to determine if it becomes a permanent event, but I'm sure interest will be high. With a bit more notice more schools will be able to plan for the race and I would guess that it will become one of the more competitive events (both to enter and to win) at the IRA.

Pitt's absence from the field leaves us without an obvious favorite, although perhaps not everyone would agree. While Pitt beat up on the Knecht Cup field by almost 14 seconds, at Dad Vail Lawrence was within 7 seconds. The only boat in this field that didn't race either Lawrence or Pitt this spring is Princeton. The Tigers did, however, race Pitt in the HOCR, finishing 18 seconds back. This looked like a pretty big gap then, but now that we've seen Pitt race 2ks, it doesn't seem quite as large.

I think Lawrence, though, must be considered the favorite in this race. At only 13 seconds behind Pitt at Dad Vail, Duquesne can claim to be a likely second. Princeton's chances, I think, are tempered by how they approach this race. If they use it to race a fast boat - say the top four from their 2V - they've got to be one of the favorites. If on the other hand, they use it as a development race for some of their freshmen, they're not. The same goes for Wisconsin, Radcliffe, and Georgetown, although to a lesser extent since their 2Vs weren't up to Princeton's speed. With the quirkiness of the four though (meaning it takes more skill to row it well), any one of these crews could put out a very fast boat.

Lawrence's biggest enemy, I think, will be their lack of big race experience. Or really, just race experience. This didn't seem to bother them at Dad Vail, however, so they apparently know how to handle it. If they race with confidence and poise, Lawrence can pull this off. We can't count out Duquesne, however, because 5 seconds (Dad Vail time to Lawrence) isn't a huge gap to a crew that made up 20 seconds on Pitt between Knecht and Dad Vail. But with all of the Sprints schools unknowns, truly anything can happen. Without heats, each crew will have to watch the entire field for a sign of who will challenge, adding pressure to the coxswain's job. These fours could very well provide the most exciting racing of the regatta, a result that just might ensure a 2008 race.

Awards and Other Press

2007-05-24T21:40:00.000-04:00

The CRCA scholar athlete awards came out and we have press releases for some of the winners. You can read about Radcliffe winners Blankstein, Conyngham, and Walro here. Stanford winners Coleman, Morawetz, and Prevost are announced here. [Update: You can also read about Buffalo's two scholar athletes, Barnum and Minardo, here, MIT's winner Schumacher here, and Georgetown's Goldman, Hupp, Moldawer, and Lipperini here. (Thanks to readers for pointing these out.)]

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin State Journal gives the Badgers some attention:

Over here is the men's rowing program, whose roots at the school can be traced to 1874. That's a good 15 years before football was introduced and 25 years before men's basketball came on the scene.
Over there is the women's lightweight program, which has won three straight national titles. The top-ranked Badgers have whipped all comers again this season and have an excellent shot at four consecutive crowns.
Their acute anonymity is tempered somewhat by the fact the men's and women's crews share new office and training headquarters inside the beautiful Porter Boathouse, which overlooks Lake Mendota.

For his "wow" statistic, the columnist notes that heavyweight coach Bebe Bryans said that "her student-athletes train more than 1,000 hours for every minute of actual racing."

Head of the Charles Changes Lightweight Limit

2007-05-23T19:05:00.000-04:00

Although the elimination of Saturday practice seems to be the bigger news, the Head of the Charles also changed the limit for lightweight women. In the past lightweight boats averaged 130 with an individual maximum of 138 pounds. The new rule sets an individual limit of 133 with no averaging. I think this is a great move and I previously discussed my opposition to the old limits. The new rules were proposed by the lightweight committee of the CRCA. I'm still not at all certain why the limit isn't a straight 130. Why are you allowed to weigh more in the fall?

In any case, this is a good change and another sign of how the lightweight community is working together and starting to take control of their own destiny.

Sparrowhawks

2007-05-22T21:07:00.001-04:00

While we languish in the calm before the storm (unless you're seat racing, that is), I thought I'd post a short video about the most recent US women's lightweight double. This is really a pitch for Philadelphia, but it talks about the 2x. Watch the video and take a look at this crew's length and catches. Pretty sweet.

Lessons Learned

2007-05-21T19:41:00.000-04:00

As we prepare for the 2007 IRA, one can't help but think about last year's dam opening that occurred during the championship races. Despite the fact that Rowing News and row2k never admitted that they published false information about the opening, there was one organization that acknowledged the problem and seems resolved to do their best to avoid a repeat - the ECAC, the regatta sponsor. While I still think it odd (and somewhat unethical) that the rowing press never admitted their mistakes in the reporting of the situation (Oh the shame, scooped by an anonymous blogger!), the ECAC had nothing to do with that and admitted the problem from the beginning. I'm pretty sure everyone will know when that dam is open and when it is closed this year.

About a month ago a story appeared in South Jersey's Courier-Post that gave some perspective to what the local authorities wrestle with when deciding when to open the Cooper River dam. This story dealt with local residents' concerns that the dam was kept open for the Knecht Cup, resulting in unnecessary flooding. This situation seems to be the opposite of last year's IRA when the dam was opened to the detriment of the regatta. (Recall that the issue last year, of course, was not that houses should be flooded for the regatta, it was communicating the state of the dam.) This Knecht Cup story leaves unanswered the question of why the dam wasn't opened until Sunday when the regatta ended Saturday afternoon, but it certainly gives you a good idea of the competing interests that must be balanced by the county. Take a look at some of the comments to this story to see just how sensitive an issue rowing on the Cooper is. Remember this when you're there in two weeks and have the urge to park in a no-parking zone or leave your Power Bar wrapper on the ground.

We're all praying for good weather for this year's IRA, but as an outdoor sport contested on nature's racecourses, problems will occur. This year, though, I feel pretty confident that they won't be of the man-made variety.

IRA Notes

2007-05-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

The MIT press release that came out last week noted that this year's Sprints was only the second time MIT has fielded a light eight in the event since becoming a varsity program. It also says that the novices will be in the mix for the IRA boat. Slowly but surely MIT is making steady progress in building the lightweight program. Their schedule includes the best the league has to offer so progress isn't always obvious, but it's there. Given a bit of time, MIT should be regularly challenging for Sprints medals.

Some readers wondered if UCF would have all of its lightweights available for the IRA even if the heavies are going to NCAAs. I said that according to NCAA rules I thought they would have everyone available other than any lights in the varsity boat (the only boat invited), but a reader responded by saying that rumor has it that UCF instituted their own rule barring heavyweight rowers from crossing over to lightweight for the IRA. The reason, apparently, is that the coaches don't want these athletes to worry about maintaining their weight during the heavyweight season for IRA. A short note from the hypocrisy file is that in larger scholarship programs there is often a great deal of pressure on "light" heavyweights (and often normal heavyweights as well) to gain weight. While I don't know if this is true at UCF, the notion of not worrying about weight often simply means that these women are encouraged to put on weight.

Another reader noted that these NCAA rules on how many championships a rower can race is one area where the NCAA has it right. I tend to agree. If you don't race the category all year you shouldn't race in a championship for that category. This is, however, a bit more problematic for lightweight women because the category is trying to grow and often happy for as much competition as possible. This kind of rule, of course, would exclude a boat like Bucknell. [Update: See reader comment disputing this, although it's not clear what "NCAA rules" have to do with lightweight rowing.]

Some readers have expressed confusion over the selection criteria for the IRA fours race. I agree that as stated there did seem to be a mix of purposes, but for this first one, I'd cut the organizers a bit of slack. Although it wasn't explained this way, it seems to make sense to me if you view the invitations as simply going to those boats that have won championships. By including smaller or "developing" school championships you get the broad range of fours available. I admit that the selection criteria for the "IRA programs" was somewhat less clear and the lack of a light four at Sprints will create problems in the future. Once some of the various champions were unable to make the event, the invitations did not revert to a "developing program" criterion, and shouldn't have. While there was not much of a drop off in speed going to Dad Vail silver medalist Lawrence, to continue to move down through that field would start to miss the point of the IRA. If the event continues, surely the only criterion can be victories in major regattas, since the IRA is not about simply providing a venue for a couple of races.

As other readers have noted, this year's event will not settle any questions of the fastest four in the nation. Some schools had scheduling conflicts due to the late notice (most notably Pitt), while it's not clear that the Sprints schools will be boating their top fours. Some of these schools may be using the event as a "development" race of their own. More important though, is the fact that this race is being staged at all. This is a huge step and, as another reader has noted, lightweight women beat lightweight men to getting a fours race at IRAs. That is a big deal.

Rankings - For the Last Time

2007-05-17T19:31:00.000-04:00

For the last time this year, we'll take a look at the rankings, starting with the coaches' poll. The top six boats stayed the same, but Ohio State made a huge jump from 14 to 7. This was precipitated, of course, by their Dad Vail victory. Long Beach State jumped from unranked to 8th, also as a result of their Dad Vail performance.

Buffalo drops one spot to 9th, and LMU also drops to 10th. LMU's rank below both Buffalo and Long Beach State is curious. The Lions raced LBS twice, winning both times. The last win was by a sliver, but a win nonetheless. They seem to be in the wrong place to me, but since all these boats should be going to the IRA, we'll find out soon enough. One other interesting move here is Bucknell's drop from 7th to 12th. I'm not sure what might have caused a coach who has been voting Bucknell 7th to now drop them, unless there is some concern about whether they can actually field a light eight or if the eight will be competitive.

In looking at the cMax rankings, we should begin by looking at last week's rank and margins, and how they compared to the actual margins at Sprints.

Margin	cMax	Actual	Difference
Wisconsin	-	-	-
Princeton	2.8	2.63	(0.17)
Georgetown	10.3	6.03	(4.27)
Radcliffe	13.0	12.57	(0.43)
MIT	24.5	46.36	21.86

With the exception of MIT and, to some extent Georgetown, it was awfully close. Georgetown got faster and most observers would have predicted a result closer to cMax's estimate. In the current rankings, the margins don't change a great amount, and once again OSU gets a big bump up from 18th to 6th. At this point, you should have a pretty good idea what a huge win Dad Vail was for the Buckeyes. UCF hangs in at 7 and here LMU is ranked 8th, above LBS and Buffalo. Interestingly, Dayton sneaks in at 9th. I'd say the cMax poll gives us a pretty good idea of where we stand right now.

As an aside, I want to mention the Georgetown press release on the Hoya's Sprints performance. It covers the usual ground, but includes this quote from Coach O'Connor:

Due to the success these girls have had over the last two seasons it might be easy for people to forget that only two years ago we lost this race by 19 seconds. The group has come a long way and it is a good sign of the continued improvement of the entire squad.

Excellent point and again, this is the same position Georgetown was in last year when they won silver at IRAs.

Comments on the IRA Fours

2007-05-17T07:45:00.000-04:00

The Exhibition race for women's lightweight fours that will be held at the IRA (see previous post) is, of course, a tremendous step forward for lightweight women. Many programs that are unable to put out competitive light eights, are able to boat extremely competitive light fours. For this reason, a fours event at the IRA is even more meaningful for the lightweight women. The addition of this race (although on a temporary basis at the moment), is another sign of the growth of the category. At Sprints this year, the spread among the top three boats was as tight as among the top three heavyweight boats, with first and second even closer among the lights than the heavies. At Dad Vail, the spread was a little wider, but still compared favorably among the top three. At lower levels, of course, the category continues to see a wider dispersion, but it's not what it was just a few years ago. This is an exciting new initiative and I feel confident it will be successful this year and become a permanent event.

As for the selection process, it's hard to get too worked up about an exhibition race (which I suppose simply means no medals, no championship, and temporary for now), but let's take a quick look. It's pretty hard to argue with the idea of inviting the gold medalists from the A-10, WIRA, SIRA and Dad Vail. This provides an opportunity for boats who rarely, or never, race at the IRA to do so (perhaps the PCRC champs could be added). More importantly, however, it makes those championship regattas that much more meaningful. The boats that receive invitations because they are champions, earned their invitations on the water. Although a reader has posted that Pitt will not be racing, I desperately hope they can work out their conflicts because they deserve to race at the pinnacle of collegiate rowing. (BTW, see Pitt story here.) I'm also thrilled for Lawrence. I would argue that the Dad Vail fours silver should be invited before the WIRA eights silver, but Long Beach's entry in the eight mooted that concern. It can be hard to imagine what this kind of exposure can mean to a school like Lawrence if you've never worked your butt off for a club program that is all but unknown at your school (of course, this is true for most club programs, Pitt included). It's hard not to have a soft spot for this little school in Wisconsin that's coming to the big stage. As the winner of A-10s, Duquesne deserves an invite as well.

I find the IRA program invites a bit more curious. The theme for the other invites is that they earned it on the water this year. The IRA boats are invited based on what they did a year ago in an unrelated boat. Unrelated because the rowers in the four would come from the 2V eight, not the varsity eight. A look back at the past several years shows that rarely does the V8 winner also win the V4, suggesting that there is no correlation between the two.

It seems to me that there two more logical ways to choose the IRA program fours. The first, and best, is to pick the gold and silver medalists in the 2V at Sprints. The fours from these programs will be made up of athletes from the 2V and this is where those athletes proved themselves on the water. The speed of last year's 1V says little about the worthiness of this year's 2V athletes. The other option is to invite the gold and silver medalists from last year's Sprints fours final. Although it still relies on a performance from a year ago, at least it's in the right boat.

Now, let's compare. The IRA programs that are actually coming are Wisconsin and Georgetown (Radcliffe gets in through a loophole). If the preferred option were used it would be Princeton and Radcliffe. Given the Tigers' victory at Sprints, it's pretty hard, well, impossible, to argue that Princeton doesn't have the most deserving 2V athletes. I suppose it's possible that Wisconsin's and Georgetown's best four are as fast as Princeton's best four, and that the 20+ seconds was all due to the relative quality of the next four, but that stretches too far for me. If we used the second method the invitees would be Princeton and Radcliffe again. (Oh, and don't forget that Princeton was just after Pitt at the HOCR.) Because Radcliffe gets in through a loophole, it looks like Princeton is really the program that suffers here.

One is tempted to wonder about MIT. After all, they did beat a Princeton four during the season. The problem there is, with the Sprints programs concentrating on 2Vs instead of fours, we have no idea who was in either four. The boats weren't put together with an IRA invitation in mind, so we can't really look to that race. Nonetheless, it does seem as if MIT should be there, but I can't think of formula that puts them in the race.

The upshot of all this is that all of the right boats seem to be involved except for Princeton. It's difficult to get too exercised over an exhibition race, but it just misses being a race of this year's top fours.

About the IRA Fours Race

2007-05-16T19:37:00.000-04:00

Steve Kish was kind enough to explain how the lightweight four event at the IRA came into being and how the invitees were selected for this year's exhibition race:

CRCA Lightweight Committee met over the winter and one of the initiatives that came of its meeting was the goal of increasing participation in the lightweight eight at the IRA. In addition to encouraging the eights to attend (good to see LMU and Long Beach coming this year), the thought was to also encourage programs that are still developing and perhaps racing the lightweight four, in the hopes that the experience would lead those programs to put together an eight for the next year. It is not meant to be exclusive nor do we think it is the perfect system and I am sure there are plenty of ways to look at the idea and poke holes in it. Long of the short is that a number of programs who have never raced at the IRA will be there this year. We’ll see where it goes from there.

It took a while to get the idea off the ground and definitely on the program. Very happy that the IRA (Gary Caldwell) was supportive and the CRCA lwt committee is very happy that they agreed, as are all the coaches I have been in contact with. It is an exhibition and we’ll see how it goes. It is a six boat straight final on Friday afternoon.

The initial idea was to invite the gold medalists from the A-10, WIRA, SIRA and Dad Vail. The other two spots were to be filled by the top lwt eights programs based on their finish from the previous IRA. So, that is Wisconsin and Georgetown .

Duquesne accepted the invite. LMU is coming in the eight, not in the four. Georgia could not accept as a result of scheduling conflicts. And Pitt is still working on their scheduling conflicts but we hope they will be able to come. The scheduling conflicts are a result of me not getting the word out soon enough. Hopefully, if all runs well this year, it will be something that everyone will be aware of right from the start next year.

Without the WIRA champ available as they are coming in the eight, the next idea was to invite the WIRA silver, but that is Long Beach and they are also coming in an eight. The decision was then made to simply find the most competitive non-IRA program and invite it. So the next one on the list was from the Dad Vail, and that is Lawrence . They have accepted. Brock was considered but the IRA would like to keep the regatta as a US championship, as is the general IRA as well as the NCAA, etc.

So, the sixth spot has been filled by Radcliffe, as they were third at last year’s IRA.

Stanford made a case for their four which won the PCRC’s. But, again, based on the spirit of what we were trying to do, it didn’t make sense to bring a VL4 from Stanford, when Stanford is also rowing a lwt eight. Radcliffe on the other hand, is being invited based on last year’s finish, similar to Wisconsin and Georgetown .

So, currently it is Duquesne, Lawrence , Wisconsin , Georgetown , Radcliffe and hopefully Pitt.

About Last Week

2007-05-15T17:34:00.000-04:00

This blog is about lightweight women's rowing and therefore the growth of lightweight women's rowing. One of the things holding back that growth, is the commonly held idea that lightweight women rowers are more likely to have eating disorders than their college attending female peers. I have never seen any studies that support that notion and therefore I believe it to be a red herring. I could certainly be wrong, but I just have yet to see anything to suggest that.

This idea seems to be held most strongly by the NCAA and certain athletic directors and heavyweight coaches. As a counter, I like to point out the hypocrisy of thinking proportionately more lightweights have eating disorders, while not also worrying that proportionately more heavyweights have a BMI above 25. (Both of which, by the way, I suspect are false.) The Yale "Food" video was a perfect example of this. As I said, had this been done by lightweights, alarm bells would have been rung all over campus. I, however, thought it would have been as funny done by lightweights as it was done by heavyweights.

In this case, my target was the NCAA and all of those who believe that lightweights are destined to eating disorders. The heavyweights simply suffered collateral damage. As those who have read this blog for any length of time know, I'm not about to let worries about political correctness stop me from telling the emperor he has no clothes.

There is another point. I've known for some time that certain readers were using FITD to mock lightweight rowing. Although it was unintended, the "Food" post smoked those readers out. I could not ask for a more powerful statement of why lightweights cannot leave their fate in the hands of predominantly heavyweight organizations (i.e. CRCA and NCAA) than the kind of sentiments that were posted as comments. (This attitude is hardly new. We've come across it before.) It's hard to work to grow the category with people who don't even believe you should exist. I'll no doubt refer and link to those comments for some time. When you read them, you have to ask yourself if they're shared by those readers' coaches, the very CRCA coaches entrusted with ensuring the health and growth of women's lightweight rowing.

2007 Pacific Coast Rowing Championships

2007-05-14T20:51:00.000-04:00

The West Coast did some racing last weekend too, as the Pacific Coast Rowing Championships were held on Lake Natoma. In the eight, it was no surprise as the number three ranked boat in the nation, Stanford, easily took care of Loyola Marymount. This may seem like a sideshow to the weekend, but I would suggest that the eastern crews take notice. While we saw Georgetown and Radcliffe close up on Princeton and Wisconsin, Stanford widened its margin over an improving LMU crew by over 10 seconds! Clearly the Cardinal hasn't been sitting still. Need I remind you that Stanford only lost to Wisconsin by 3.1 seconds, while Princeton just lost to them by 2.6 seconds. And Stanford raced the Badgers 2 weeks ago. One could make a good case that Stanford should be ranked second right now. This year's IRA is shaping up to be potentially the best ever (uh, wasn't that just last year?).

In the fours, Stanford also came away with gold, beating second place Humboldt State by 18 seconds. UCSD was third, followed by University of the Pacific and Cal.

Wingnuts and Washers From the Weekend

2007-05-14T20:32:00.000-04:00

A presser about Dayton's silver in the JV eight at Dad Vail originally called the boat the "lightweight eight." Perhaps they did a Bucknell after all. This link, though, goes to the "2nd varsity" story.

The Stanford and LMU pressers about PCRCs are here and here.

Sprints stories are up for Wisconsin, Princeton, and Radcliffe.

Wisconsin also won the inaugural Konrad Ulbrich Team Trophy, another feather to put in the Badger cap. Also, a few people mentioned that one of the Wisco rowers was a bit wobbly on the awards dock after the race. Unbelievably (because I watched the medal presentation) I missed it all. You know, rowers always joke about passing out on the last stroke of the race, but few actually pull it off. This woman apparently came pretty close and nothing more can possibly be said about giving your all. What a testament not only to the intensity of the race, but to the spirit and heart of that athlete.

2007 Eastern Sprints

2007-05-13T18:37:00.000-04:00

Claws flashed and fur flew as the Badgers and Tigers met in battle on the Cooper River, but when the dust settled, the world looked pretty much as it had before.

In the varsity eight race, Princeton jumped out to a half length lead over Wisconsin heading into the 1000. Radcliffe had an advantage over Georgetown for third, but moving through the halfway point the Hoyas gained. As Georgetown moved on Radcliffe, Wisconsin began to slowly march on Princeton. Through the third 500, the Badgers pulled even and both crews began their sprints with Wisconsin taking a psychological edge.

Prior to this race, if anyone suspected that the Tigers had a weakness, this was it. Conversely, if the Badgers have an historical strength, the sprint is it. When weakness meets strength from an even start, the outcome is inevitable. Pulling ahead a bit through the beginning of the last 500, Wisconsin moved through Princeton in the last 250. Unable to maintain the length necessary for an effective run, Princeton faded as Wisconsin took the gold by just about half of a boat length. A full length back came Georgetown for third, followed 6.5 seconds later by Radcliffe, with MIT finishing 5th.

This was a great race to watch as the outcome was not certain until the last 200 meters or so, and the battle between Wisconsin and Princeton was so intense that it was almost a surprise when you noticed that Georgetown was within a length and a half of Wisco. In contrast to the Dad Vail medal presentations, there weren't a lot of happy faces at Sprints. Georgetown was no doubt happy to win a bronze, but after winning it last year this was a bit like kissing your brother. Princeton may as well have been receiving hot pokers in the eye at the awards dock, and Wisconsin looked surprisingly nonchalant. Such is life in the big leagues.

Rumors persisted about Radcliffe moving freshmen out of the novice boat and into one of the varsity boats. I suppose only Radcliffe knows for sure. Georgetown, let me remind you, is following their 2006 script, and have cut 4 seconds off their last loss to Wisco, and 2 seconds off their last loss to Princeton. Radcliffe came a whopping 10 seconds closer to Wisco and 1 second closer to Princeton. Clearly the field has tightened, but looking at these margin changes, one might believe that Princeton has actually been gaining more (or is that, losing less) speed than Wisconsin over the past few weeks.

The inaugural 2V race saw the most dominating win of the day as Princeton won by almost 20 seconds. By 500 meters into the race the Tigers had a length on Radcliffe and just settled in to row smoothly and powerfully down the course. This crew looked good, although that isn't hard to do when the next closest boat is, well, not nearby. Radcliffe and Wisconsin, though, had a tremendous battle for second place. After a bit of seesawing through the body, both crews put on churning sprints as the Black and White edged out the Badgers by something less than a boat length. Georgetown finished up 5th. In contrast to the varsity race, these crews were pretty happy to get their medals. Princeton was especially happy, as their name will forever be listed first among the winners of the lightweight 2V at Eastern Sprints. The Radcliffe crew, both those in the boat and watching from shore, seemed to take extra delight in the boat's second place finish, leading one to believe that something interesting was going on with that boat.

It's pretty unusual to find a crew with a 1V as fast as Princeton's to also have such a dominating 2V. There's no doubt the Tigers have depth this year, and one has to believe that Coach Rassam has a lot of options to explore over the next two weeks. It seems that in such a fast 2V must be two to four women who could move into the 1V without causing any loss of speed in that boat. The task then, is either to get the current lineup sprinting well and with length, or looking for a combination that does. Often it's not finding the best rowers, it's finding the best combination.

In the novice eight, Radcliffe accepted its crown as the country's top boat. Wisconsin's novices, who for some reason were not listed on early entry lists, made the race interesting, but still could get no closer than 8 seconds. Princeton finished third, avenging a loss to Georgetown who finished fourth, and MIT was fifth. If rowers were switched out of this boat, it didn't seem to hurt them. Then again, they had speed to burn. Whatever the case for Sprints, it seems certain that the freshmen will be in the seat racing mix over the next two weeks and there will be a different Radcliffe boat at IRAs.

2007 Dad Vail - Eights

2007-05-12T22:22:00.000-04:00

Coming to the final of the light eight through heats this year, must have made each boat hungrier for the ultimate win. It certainly made them race that way.

After a clean start, the the fates first turned against Buffalo. As the Bulls, who were in third place at the time, made the turn under Strawberry Mansion, they hit a buoy and fell immediately into fifth place. Right after the bridge Ohio State was up, Long Beach State was second, and Lehigh was now third. By the 1000 meter mark, Buffalo had begun a fierce comeback and was trying to move into fourth. At 750 Long Beach State had taken over the lead, followed by OSU, UMass, Lehigh, Buffalo, and Penn State.

By the start of the island Lehigh had moved into third and the hard charging Bulls followed through UMass and took over fourth. The race was now in its final throes. Ohio State and Long Beach State began trading the lead as each one willed itself to the finish line. By 250 to go, Ohio State had put on an incredible move to pull almost 3/4 of a length ahead of LBS. The Buckeyes walked away in such decisive fashion that you could almost hear the oars chunking the boat forward. Long Beach State fought valiantly but had no answer. OSU won the gold by 4 seconds over LBS, who was followed a little over 6 seconds later by hard charging Buffalo. Lehigh was fourth, followed by UMass and Penn State.

Ohio State's victory was something of a renaissance for this crew. Without a lot of lightweight races, other than facing murderers' row in Indianapolis, it was hard to know how fast the crew really was. Now we know. Long Beach State is one of the top crews on the West Coast and Buffalo had been surging lately. This was an exciting, hard fought race and the Buckeyes can be proud of their gold medals. Now, we can only hope, it's on to IRAs.

Long Beach State made a long trip east and almost came away with the win. This crew has had its share of tough losses this season, but they should pay off next year. LBS represented the West Coast admirably and the Dad Vail was lucky to have them. Short of the Sprints league crews, they beat the best the east has to offer, save one. Hopefully this is the start of a tradition. It would be nice to see LBS at IRAs, but I suspect two cross-country trips may be asking a bit too much.

Buffalo, meanwhile, proved itself to be one of the best crews in the east. They had a tough break hitting the buoy, but showed tremendous heart pulling themselves back through the field. The Bulls obviously would have been closer to the two leaders with a clean run. Buffalo too, has earned themselves a trip to Camden, and I hope we see them there.

The Dad Vail results have certainly mixed up the lower end of the national rankings. Buffalo was ranked far ahead of OSU, who was ranked ahead of unranked Long Beach State. This should break both OSU and LBS into the top ten, or very close to it.

It's always fun to watch happy crews on the awards dock, and Ohio State was no exception. Head Coach Hugh Dodd was on the dock enjoying the first of what he hopes will be many Dad Vail championships. It's nice to win one in your first season with the team! Former coach Peter Steenstra also made the scene, jumping down from the grandstands for quick congratulations just before the boat shoved off.

2007 Dad Vail - Fours

2007-05-12T18:51:00.000-04:00

It was a perfect day for racing when five boats, the top three from their semis, pulled to the line to challenge Pittsburgh's domination of the light four. To their right, in lane 1, the Panthers saw Brock, with George Mason in lane 2. To the left of the Panthers was Lawrence, then Duquesne, and in lane 6 was CMU. Pittsburgh must have been confident, but couldn't have been certain.

By Strawberry Mansion, Pitt had the lead, but was followed closely by Brock and Lawrence. At 1000 meters, Pitt had a length on the field. Given most Pitt races, this lead cannot have felt comfortable. Then again, a championship race is rarely comfortable.

Coming out of the 1000 Brock was hanging on to second while George Mason took over third, followed by Lawrence, Duquesne, and CMU. At the start of the island Pitt had widened its lead, Brock clung to second, but Lawrence began to move through George Mason for third.

Racing through the island, Pitt, looking unbeatable in its usual position surveying the field, had front row seats to a donnybrook unfolding behind them. By the end of the island Lawrence had taken over second and George Mason was moving into third. Brock and George Mason were in the midst of a tremendous battle as Pittsburgh crossed the line first, just over 7 seconds ahead of an impressive Lawrence crew. By the time the finish line flag moved a third time, 3 seconds later, George Mason had moved 0.3 seconds ahead of Brock for the bronze.

Although now this victory for Pitt seemed inevitable, no victory is. Rarely has a boat so deserved to win a Dad Vail championship. The Panthers took on all comers through fall and spring, defeating every one, leaving little doubt who is the top light four in the nation today. The story would end here, except for the light four exhibition race expected to take place prior to IRAs. At the moment, we've only been told that Duquesne, Wisconsin, and Georgetown have been invited, but it's hard to believe that Pittsburgh will not be included. It would be nice to see MIT and Princeton round out the field, the only two EAWRC fours that haven't faced the Panthers this spring, which would settle the issue once and for all. In the meantime, however, Pitt should bask in some well deserved glory.

Lawrence, the little school in Appleton Wisconsin, turns out to be the home of one of the top light fours in the nation. With few races this spring, and no doubt completely unknown at school, a silver medal at Dad Vail should bring them a bit of notoriety and, who knows, maybe even a few more operating dollars.

George Mason avenged their loss to Duquesne at MACCC and substantially improved their performance since Knecht. As their coach said after they got their medals, "Medaling at Dad Vail is a BIG deal." With a senior stroke, the crew won't be intact next year, but with this kind of performance this boat should get some attention next season.

Each of the crews coming in to get their medals radiated happiness. A Mason father promised his daughter chocolate chip cookies, while at least one Lawrence rower credited her coxie with nailing every call perfectly. Even Pittsburgh, who might have been forgiven if they had expected it, seemed thrilled about winning the gold. Bow seat, by the way, who is no doubt routinely mistaken for a coxswain, must be one of the most efficient athletes in rowing.

Now we just need to see how the IRA race plays out.

[Update: See comments for a nice post from CMU.]

Quick Dad Vail Update

2007-05-11T20:20:00.000-04:00

Light four boats moving on:
Heat 1 - Pitt, George Mason, Purdue
Heat 2 - CMU, Georgia, Toronto
Heat 3 - Lawrence, Duquesne, Northwestern
Heat 4 - Brock, UConn, Iona

The heats seemed to have been pretty fair, and the only mild surprises were Ohio State and Lafayette. OSU must be saving it all for the eight and Lafayette, while not necessarily one of the strongest boats entered, had been improving and no doubt had some hopes of making the final. This is a very fast field, however, so it wasn't going to be easy.

Light eight boats moving on:
Heat 1 - Long Beach State, Ohio State, Buffalo
Heat 2 - Lehigh, UMass, Penn State

Virginia Tech drew the short end of the stick here, as their heat 1 time would have won heat 2. This sort of thing happens every year here, but I'm not sure there is a solution for it. It's tough luck for the Hokies, who probably deserve to be in the final.

A final note here, in the preview I inexplicably noted the wrong margin for LBS vs LMU, which led me to view OSU as the favorite, rather than Long Beach State. LBS did have the fastest qualifying time, but in heats like this those times can mean very little. In this case, I suspect a lot of boats were able to do some cruising, so we'll see quite a bit more speed and intensity tomorrow.

Princeton Four at Sprints

2007-05-11T20:18:00.000-04:00

A reader noted something I missed, which is that Princeton has entered a light four in the varsity four B race. The fact that Princeton has enough depth to enter a four is pretty promising. It will be interesting to see how they fare.

2007 Pacific Coast Rowing Championship Preview

2007-05-11T19:55:00.000-04:00

A bit overshadowed by the huge East Coast regattas this weekend, the PCRCs take place in Sacramento. In the light eight, LMU takes on Stanford. (The LMU release also says that Cal will be in the race, but they aren't listed on the heat sheet.) Stanford has owned LMU recently, but the Lions are starting to come into their own. I don't think they're quite up to beating the number 3 crew in the nation, but the race will give them a good feel for where they stand heading to IRAs. For Stanford the race will serve to give them some racing action against a worthy opponent. The Cardinal will have to guard against overconfidence because I suspect that LMU will narrow past margins.

There's a five boat field in the four, consisting of Cal, UCSD, Stanford, Humboldt State, and the University of the Pacific. Stanford looks like the fastest of this group, having previously defeated Cal and Humboldt State. UCSD previously raced LBS, finishing 16 seconds back. This looks like Stanford's race to lose.

LMU lightweight Jill Austin is also racing in the open single, a little less than three hours before the eights. Austin sculled quite a bit over the summer and I wouldn't be surprised to see her pull off a win here.

2007 Eastern Sprints Preview

2007-05-10T20:26:00.000-04:00

It was at the 2006 Sprints that the "Big 3" lightweight crews first received notice that the lightweight world was changing. Georgetown rode their third place finish to a silver medal at IRAs, breaking the Wisconsin-Radcliffe-Princeton hold on the top three places at both Sprints and IRAs. That trend seems set to continue this year.

Eastern Sprints are usually marked by re-matches, as crews have faced each other several times before. This year, however, the first and second ranked crews in the nation will meet for the first time this season. Through a scheduling quirk, Princeton was at Windermere during the Knecht Cup, and the Badgers only had the pleasure of defeating Georgetown and Radcliffe from the Sprints league (MIT was also racing elsewhere). This clash of Titans doesn't need much in the way of hype, so I'll just note that Wisconsin is given the number one seed by margins vs. common opponents, the coaches' poll, and cMax. Common sense tells you to agree, but races like this are too unpredictable to allow yourself to made a fool of by common sense. Besides, Georgetown, Radcliffe, and MIT might have something to say about the outcome as well. Each of these crews has been steadily improving, and it's an open question whether they can catch the two favorites. Don't forget, heading into this race, Georgetown is in a very similar position to last year, and MIT just might find the speed that allowed it to beat the Hoyas in Boston in the fall. You can hear Radcliffe Coach Cecile Tucker discuss her squad's chances here.

A further sign of the strengthening of the category is the addition this year of a 2V eight event. Princeton, Radcliffe, Georgetown, and Wisconsin will face off in this race. With the exception of Wisconsin, all of these boats have raced each other, with the Tigers rising to the top. With Wisconsin the unknown boat in this race, the outcome becomes less predictable. It's not clear who Wisconsin will use to crew this boat, so its speed is impossible to predict. If strength of program means anything, however, it should be fast.

If any race seems like a foregone conclusion, it's the five boat novice eight event. Radcliffe has shown itself to be head and shoulders above the rest of the field, as it cruised to open water victories in all of its races. Princeton and Georgetown have traded wins, while MIT's ability to boat a competitive novice eight speaks well of its future strength.

At this point I should note that there is a rumor that four Radcliffe novice rowers have been pulled into the varsity eight (or 2V?). I would be surprised if this were true because I think Radcliffe is more likely to let the novices take a well deserved run at the Sprints novice title, and worry about putting together a new varsity combination in the weeks between Sprints and IRAs. Nonetheless, these rumors often have some basis in fact.

The light four is casualty of this year's new 2V event, but I think it has given its life in a worthy cause. I suspect that MIT wouldn't agree with me, since they seem to have had the fastest Sprints league four throughout the season. Nonetheless, without the Title IX inspired, money driven quantity of rowers found elsewhere, few lightweight programs would have the 32 athletes needed to boat three eights and a four.

Also new at Sprints this year, is the Konrad Ulbrich Team Point Trophy for lightweight teams. The Radcliffe Web site notes that this trophy honors "Konrad Ulbrich, a dedicated father who never missed a race during the time that his daughters rowed for Radcliffe." Before anyone gets grumpy wondering why a Radcliffe father gets this honor, I'll remind you that it was Radcliffe who kept women's lightweight rowing alive through some very dark years. It only seems fitting that the trophy should have a Radcliffe connection. If you want another reason, spend a minute reading about this guy. As goofy as you know I think point trophies are, even I'd like to win this one! Read to the end to learn about his family, "none of whom has ever lived up to his expectations (yet!)."

2007 Dad Vail Preview

2007-05-09T21:04:00.000-04:00

This year's Dad Vail has more light eight and light four entries than in the past several years, with eight and twenty-two respectively. Maybe the early notice of no lightweight events at ECAC helped the entries, but it's nice to see the light eight growing this year.

Looking at the field by heats, the first race off the line is comprised of Ohio State, Buffalo, Long Beach State, and Virginia Tech. Long Beach State heads west as probably the third fastest crew on the West Coast, after Stanford and LMU. If we play the margin game, we see that in previous races LBS was 10 [0.1] seconds behind LMU, who was 18 seconds behind Stanford, giving us reason to say that LBS might be 28 [18] seconds from Stanford. Ohio State was 26 seconds back from Stanford. The makings of a good race? Buffalo, meanwhile, has raced within 30 seconds of Georgetown, while OSU has been within 19 seconds. Virginia Tech, coming off of a MACCC victory, hasn't seen common opponents, so may be able to take some crews by surprise. In this heat, likely the faster of the two, the margin game gives the edge to ~~Ohio State~~ [LBS], but it should be a good race. [Re-Update: I completely messed this one up. A reader pointed out that I picked up an incorrect margin for LBS-LMU, and the right one just didn't register even though I had written about the race. Sorry about that.] [Update: See comment for a comparison I missed here.]

In the second heat, Temple, Lehigh, UMass, and Penn State mix it up. With the addition of UMass, this is the Murphy Cup final. With Lehigh enjoying previous victories over both Temple and Penn State, and UMass with a win over MIT and a 12 second loss to Buffalo (this apparently will not be the crew that lost to Temple), these two crews would appear to be the favorites.

Noticeable by their absence are Duquesne and last year's champ, Dayton. Dayton does have a boat entered in the JV eight, and that may be the lightweights. Or, with a young light eight crew this year, the Flyers may have decided to split up the boat to see what speed they could lend to the heavies. In any case, I think they would have been quite competitive in this race. Duquesne would also have been competitive, but with a strong victory in the four at A-10s, appear to have decided to give local rival Pittsburgh a run for their money.

The light four event at Dad Vail, is perhaps the most significant light four race ever at the Vails. With no four at Sprints, and with Pittsburgh's victory at Knecht, we may essentially have the national championship race this weekend. I say may, because, as one reader noted, a light four event is rumored to be set for IRAs. I don't have much in the way of details about this (it's most likely an exhibition), but I should have more after this weekend.

With 22 entries, there will be boats we haven't seen much of before, so as always, there is a chance that a fast stealth boat emerges. The favorite, of course, must be Pitt, although they won't be without challenge. I'm anxious to see if Lawrence, Duquesne, (who meet each other in the heats) and Georgia, can give the Panthers a run. Both Buffalo and Ohio State, with fast eights, are likely to boat fast fours. Lafayette seems to have been gaining speed through the season, last defeating Lehigh, and they'll be tested right away in their heat. UConn showed speed at Knecht, while Carnegie Mellon is back for another swipe at their cross-town rivals.

So, who might challenge Pitt? Georgia has won SERCs, SIRAs, and John Hunter, and would have to be considered light four champs of the South. Duquesne has won A-10 and MACCC, and has to be seen as having the most momentum coming into the weekend. Of the boats competing in both events, UConn was the closest to Pitt at Knecht, although still 17 seconds back. Ultimately, though, I think Lawrence might be the boat to watch. Lawrence has beaten Georgia, although that was back in March and a lot has happened since then, and has recently defeated Ohio State. This boat hasn't done a whole lot of racing that I'm aware of, but when it has, it's been fast.

Just as likely, of course, is a fast unknown. Iona, Toronto, Albany? I know little about them. Purdue has raced a novice four, but that's all I remember. Brock should give some pause; although they didn't have a great HOCR, they are known for fast light fours and a crew that travels from Canada is likely to believe it has a shot.

This Dad Vail should be one of the best in quite a while. With nice fields for both the four and the eight, the category looks strong and the competition is growing.

Since We Had So Much Fun With a Video Yesterday...

2007-05-08T23:47:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd highlight a few more! At Windermere last month, Jamco interviewed a few of the participating coaches. The only lightweight coach interviewed was UCF's Andy Derrick. You can see his interview here (embedding has been disabled). Coach Derrick states that UCF is committed to building the lightweight program, and notes that this year's light eight crew is young, which holds promise for next year.

Also interviewed was Arizona State heavyweight head coach, Emily Cole. Mostly heavyweight stuff, but Coach Cole does mention the Princeton 2V when she expresses her uncertainty of what the outcome might be of her crew's race with the Tigers. (As you may recall, Princeton won, as ASU finished just ahead of the maneuvering Cal lightweights.)

Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Crew Championships Results

2007-05-08T23:06:00.000-04:00

The MACCC results are finally out, and Duquesne and Virginia Tech won their events. In the eight, Virginia Tech defeated Penn State by 7 seconds. This is a nice win for VT as they head into a fairly wide open Dad Vail, where Penn State will get another shot at them.

Duquesne won the light four by 4 seconds over George Mason, who was followed 2 seconds later by CMU. Susquehanna trailed the field. This is a big win for the Dukes, who lost to George Mason at Knecht. Obviously the boat is getting faster, and it too will have some nice momentum heading into Dad Vail. For CMU and GMU, the loss was enough to cause some worry, but not enough to cause panic. Heading into one of the most significant Dad Vail light four events in memory, all boats know they have serious racing ahead, and no one can take anything for granted.

The Difference Between Lightweights and Heavyweights

2007-05-07T20:42:00.000-04:00

In honor of Sprints and Dad Vails, which for some lightweights are the only regattas at which they compete alongside their much larger sisters, I'd like to present a musical and videographic presentation of just some of the differences between heavyweights and lightweights. Actually, this is a self-portrayal by the Yale heavies, and although no lightweights appear, or are mentioned, I think you'll notice how these women differ from the lean, mean rowing machines we'll see this weekend.

Those of you at Ivy League schools have no doubt seen this video already, since it found it's way to IvyGate. Nonetheless, it's definitely worth showing here. By the way, imagine if lightweights made a video like this. The NCAA (which does/doesn't govern lightweight rowing) would be beating it's collective breast, interventions would be scheduled for the obviously sick filmakers, and the crew would no doubt be disbanded. Psychologists, sociologists, bingeologists, and perhaps some mixologists would descend upon the campus to offer counseling. Dr. Phil would have a police escort to the boathouse.

Food seems to be a fixation for heavyweight women as we often see that it plays a central role in their lives. To quote one of my all time favorite heavyweights, "I love that we’re big women and proud of it and proud that we’re strong and we love to eat." Despite this food issue, I still hope the NCAA keeps the heavyweight championship, because I'm sure with conscientious coaches and dedicated health and training staff, good heavyweight programs can ensure that their rowers aren't doomed to a life of beer and Twinkies after college athletics end. Remember lightweights, as you hear your heavyweight sisters clip-clopping around the boathouse, be considerate of their moods and feelings, because they're near the precipice, and one wrong word could push them over the edge.

Anyway, back to the video. There is only one thing to say about this thing - scary. Very, very, very SCARY. I always thought Yale was an obvious place for lightweights to take hold. Perhaps I'm wrong. (Warning: Naughty words ahead.)

How long do you think it took them to grow those mustaches?

LMU IS Headed to IRAs

2007-05-07T20:03:00.000-04:00

After I passed along some bum scoop I thought I picked up from the LMU web site, a member of the Lions light eight wrote (and a reader commented) to tell me that they are going to IRAs. It's no small commitment to travel across the country for a race, and athletic departments, rowers, coaches, and parents only put out the money for deserving crews. LMU deserves to go. This won't be an easy final to make, but with a strong, fearless row I think LMU has a good shot at it. Although the Lions lost to UCF by 10 seconds at Windermere, the Golden Knights have had the misfortune of going without a race since then, while LMU will have WIRAs and the upcoming PCRCs under their belt. (Let's stop a moment for some empathy for UCF - imagine training all this time without a race!)

While WIRAs, PCRCs, and Windermere are big time regattas, they aren't necessarily big time lightweight regattas. As the only women at IRAs, you know you are there to compete for a championship. I'm happy to see Loyola Marymount compete in New Jersey, although I suspect there will be a few crews there who won't be.

ECAC and MACRA Results

2007-05-06T11:53:00.000-04:00

At the ECAC Metro Buffalo showed why it's ranked 8th as the Bulls defeated UMass by 12 seconds. This is a good result for Buffalo and also suggests that they probably got slighted in the readers' poll. Buffalo flies a bit under the radar because they don't always put out lightweight boats. They often do, however, and those boats are often fast. Buffalo plans to race at Dad Vail and I hope to see the light eight race intact. If they do, they have to be considered one of the favorites. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that a reader has commented that this Buffalo boat has three novice walk-ons in it. If Buffalo goes to IRAs they may be headed for the grand final, a result that should make the program consider putting even more focus on the lights.

At MACRAs, OSU defeated Eastern Michigan by just over a second in the eight. I'm not positive that either of these boats were lightweights, since the race is now just listed as "2V."

In the fours, we have an ominous result. Ominous if you're headed to Dad Vail and your starting point isn't Appleton, WI. Lawrence won the light four event by 19 seconds over Ohio State. Mercyhurst followed OSU by 8 seconds, and then came Chicago and Northwestern. Places 2 through 5 were separated by 28 seconds, not a huge amount, so this wasn't simply a case of a group of boats of wildly differing quality; Lawrence just took charge of this race and put it to bed. Could this Lawrence boat be the stealth boat laying in wait for Pittsburgh? ~~I pray they're headed to Dad Vail and, if they are,~~ I'll talk about them again in the Dad Vail preview. [Update: They are going. See comments for more.]

Radcliffe Frosh Get Their Due; UCF, Not So Much

2007-05-05T18:27:00.000-04:00

The Harvard Crimson published an article on the Radcliffe freshman light eight. It's a nice story with a couple of interesting points - the boat is comprised of ~~all~~ [six] recruits [a reader notes the article got this wrong], keeping the boat together is part of the Radcliffe way, and only one rower from the varsity eight graduates this year.

I think it's pretty significant that Radcliffe was able to bring in eight recruits this year. It obviously bodes well for the future of the program. When these freshmen mix in with the varsity next year, most of whom return, a pretty fast boat should result.

UCF, meanwhile, published a presser on the women's rowing team. In this case, however, it's really the heavyweight women's rowing team. It's a nice story about the recognition they're getting this year, but never mentions the lightweights. Not a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the heavies are treated as the whole team.

This story leads to the dark underside of the NCAA's involvement with rowing - the distorted boat priorities. Several of last year's fast lightweights have been brought into the heavyweight group. I haven't followed the heavies, but I believe one or two lights have been in the 1V. One might think that the others, who are spending time in the 2V or lower, would get released back to the lights to make a run at a national championship at IRAs. Thanks to the NCAA championship format, however, the program is forced to prioritize the heavy 2V above the light 1V, keeping the lightweight rowers out of the lightweight boat. Maybe you're thinking that it won't be a problem for IRAs since the heavies' season will be over by then? Sorry, if UCF heavies go to NCAAs, as it looks like they will, by NCAA rules those rowers who attend will not be allowed to race in another championship. It's sad to see a boat that had a real chance at challenging for a medal at IRAs torn apart simply to fill out a 2V so UCF can bring an entire team to NCAAs.

Just another example of how the NCAA works for the good of all female college athletes.

Readers' Polls - Results

2007-05-05T17:29:00.000-04:00

The readers' poll results are in, and the rankings are in the right sidebar and below, with point totals. The results pretty much track conventional wisdom, with one or two exceptions.

V8

1. Wisconsin 1,242
2. Princeton 1,149
3. Stanford 967
4. Georgetown 912
5. Radcliffe 874
6. UCF 519
7. Bucknell 511
8. MIT 393
9. California 146
9. Ohio State 146

V4

1. Pittsburgh 221
2. Georgetown 154
3. Princeton 147
4. Wisconsin 111
5. MIT 83

In the eights, Wisconsin is seen as the top boat by a fairly wide margin over Princeton, although the Tigers are solidly in second place. Stanford, Radcliffe, and Georgetown make up the core of the top tier. UCF and Bucknell make up the next group, followed by MIT and then everyone else. This voting is a pretty good reflection of the current state of the lightweight world. Last year at this time, however, that top tier would probably have only been four boats, since Stanford was off. This year we could still have a Bucknell or UCF (or who knows?) close the gap substantially, much as they did in 2006.

One glaring omission from this top ten is LMU. I don't see how LMU can be left off when Cal and OSU are on, tied for 9th. LMU beat Cal by 19 seconds just last weekend. I think it's pretty clear that the Lions should be ranked somewhere around 8, 9, or 10. One could also make an argument for UMass to be higher since they beat MIT, but the idea was to vote for standings at the end of the season so it may be that voters think MIT will recover some speed. In LMU and Cal's case, however, they'll race at PCRC and then they're done. I guess it's possible that Cal could go faster, but I think LMU is pretty locked on.

Among the fours, Pitt is the clear leader, as you would expect. Wisconsin and MIT are a bit puzzling, however, since Wisconsin's only real race was at Knecht, where they failed to qualify for the final, losing to CMU as well as Pitt in the heat, while MIT has beaten Princeton. Again, however, the vote is for standings at year-end, so it's possible voters expect Wisco and Princeton to show up with strong fours at Sprints.

In the end, I think the gravest injustice was done to the LMU eight. No doubt most voters are from the east, which results in a bit of an East Coast bias. With the Easties rarely seeing a West Coast boat like LMU, I suppose it's somewhat predictable that the Lions might be missed in the voting.

Some poll statistics: 145 people voted in the V8 poll and 70 voted in the V4 poll. In each poll there were three votes that voted for one boat more than once, and those votes were removed. A few of the votes were clearly gags, or cast by incredibly misinformed people, but most votes seemed to be thoughtfully cast.

Upcoming Races

2007-05-03T21:41:00.000-04:00

It's easy to write off this weekend before Sprints and Dad Vails as down time, but a look at the schedule says otherwise.

Let's start with the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Crew Championships. The Virginia Tech light eight, which has been looking for a fight for the past couple of weeks, finally gets one in the form of the Penn State lights. I can't remember Virginia Tech racing a light eight yet this year so I'll be anxious to see how they do against the Nittany Lions, a crew that took second at the Murphy Cup.

The light four has a four boat field with entries from Carnegie Mellon, Susquehanna, Duquesne, and Virginia Commonwealth. Duquesne and CMU were headed for a showdown (Duquesne beat CMU by 0.2 seconds at Knecht) at the WV Governor's Cup, but weather forced a cancellation. They'll get another chance here with the Dukes coming off that record setting performance at A-10s. ~~George Mason sponsors this event so I'm surprised that their four isn't entered.~~ [A reader notes that George Mason has entered their light four, which was just over a second ahead of CMU and Duquesne at Knecht. This will be a great race!]

In Michigan, MACRAs will run light eight and light four events. In the eight, Ohio State takes on Eastern Michigan (this event is listed as JV/Light, so EMU may be a heavy boat), while there's a full six boat light four event. The fours entered are Cleveland State, Lawrence, Mercyhurst, Northwestern, Ohio State, and Chicago. OSU should be strong while Lawrence defeated Northwestern earlier in the year at the Clemson Sprints. This is a race for Dad Vail fours to watch since I suspect Lawrence may be a sleeper entry while Northwestern won the regatta two years ago.

The ECAC Metro regatta only has a two boat light eight race, but it should be a doozy. UMass, presumably in its non-novice incarnation, takes on Buffalo. Buffalo is on the verge of breaking into the top five while UMass was able to upend MIT. This is an important race for both of these crews as they (hopefully) head into Dad Vails. If UMass has its top boat on the water, I see this as the best race of the weekend, with the CMU vs Duquesne four showdown coming in a close second.

Coaches' Poll and cMax

2007-05-03T21:11:00.000-04:00

I'm late on the latest rankings too, although the coaches' poll didn't show much movement. cMax is a different story however, as UCF jumped a spot to #4 and LMU jumped one to #7. My guess is that LMU brought this on with their WIRA victory. UCF moved without racing, but they beat LMU earlier in the season so no doubt benefited from the Lions' excellent WIRA performance.

It sure is interesting to see a ranking in which the Easties "don't get no respect." Unfortunately this is another argument (like the fours) that we won't see settled this year.

Another interesting observation comes from the cMax rankings. Through the top five positions, the lightweight category is the second most competitive women's category (after the heavyweight women). By tenth place, however, it's fourth out of five. This illustrates both how far you've come and how far you have to go. In all cases, however, the lights have more crews and are more competitive than a NCAA championship category - DII. So let's see, they get the most desirable thing on God's earth, a NCAA championship, while lightweights don't?

Whatever.

Lightweight Pocock All-America Award

2007-05-03T21:02:00.000-04:00

Nominations for the first Lightweight Pocock All-America Awards are due by noon on May 15th. I noted earlier in the year that the CRCA Lightweight committee was able to get this honor instituted on a trial basis, with the first awards coming this year. Perhaps this seems like a small thing, but I think it's a much overdue step forward for the category.

A friendly reminder never hurts, and it would sure be a shame to miss the deadline in the first year.

Remember to Vote - FITD Reader Polls

2007-05-02T23:42:00.000-04:00

Please remember to vote in the varsity eight and varsity four polls in the sidebar. Read the "honor code" here. A few readers wrote in with some crews that I should've included in the list, in particular some from the Pacific Northwest. Since I was without a computer for a while, I was unable to make any immediate changes and with the poll running for several days now, we'll keep the choices we have.

As for the Pacific Northwest, I agree I should've included some of those crews. I didn't really get them in there initially because it seems they tended to just race amongst themselves so far this season, leaving us without a good way to compare against the rest of the world. With PCRCs coming up, maybe that will change. I'll get them in next time.

Some readers have also noted the difficulty in ranking fours because they don't all race each other. This is very true and I noted that, but just try your best. At the end of the season we'll do it again and we'll probably end up with the best (only) final fours ranking available.

Thanks for taking the time to vote. We have quite a few votes in already, so please don't vote twice (the honor code and all that).

LMU Wins the Eight and the Four at WIRAs

2007-05-02T23:10:00.000-04:00

Well, a lot's been happening! I'm late on this, of course, but we need to give LMU their due. The Lions won both the light eight and light four at WIRAs last weekend. The light eight was decided by a whisker, otherwise known as 0.1 seconds! Here's how LMU saw it:

In the eight, LMU and Cal State Long Beach took an early lead over the field of six, which included Cal Lightweights, Arizona State, UC San Diego, and Chapman University. Long Beach held a four seat lead over the LMU lightweights until about 1600 meters in when LMU began to make a move. Coming into the last 30 strokes, LMU had managed to bring the deficit down to 2 seats, and just before the finish line, edged their bow-ball in front to a win, with a .1 second margin over Long Beach. In third place was UC San Diego, 12 seconds back.

Cal, Chapman, and ASU were fourth, fifth, and sixth.

The four was a bit more comfortable as LMU took an early lead and won by 8 seconds over Long Beach State, who was followed by UCSD, USD, PLU, and Mills.

This is truly lightweight racing at its best. A race like that in the eight is so exhilarating for the winners and so devastating for the losers, that it approaches the perfect athletic experience. It certainly doesn't feel like that to Long Beach State, but to fully know victory, you must taste bitter defeat. The fact is that Long Beach State turned in an incredible performance, of which they should be proud. Back in March, LBS was 3.5 seconds back from LMU. Since then, we've watched the Lions race, and we know that they've raced high level competition and have only become faster. For Long Beach to sneak up on a high quality crew like that is quite an achievement.

As for the Lions, rowing from behind for 3/4 of the race, yet keeping enough confidence to push through a move in the last 400 meters, finally pulling out the victory by a bowball in the last 30 strokes - that's guts. While Stanford, a strong dedicated varsity lightweight program, has been bringing West Coast class to the lightweight league for several years, Loyola Marymount is beginning to epitomize the new face of western lightweight rowing. With Stanford as a target, programs like LMU are consistently rowing fast lightweight boats and creating a true competitive league west of the Rockies. The Pacific Northwest is a bit behind in development, but will ultimately come on faster. While some of the hoary old eastern crews abandon lightweights to focus on the NCAA's one-way pot of gold, open minded western programs are beginning to realize that their minds, and their programs, are their own, to do with as they please. Imagine, you can have fast heavyweights AND fast lightweights! Who would've thunk it (well, other than Princeton, Wisconsin, Radcliffe, ...)?

Stepping off my soap box, let's get back to LMU. The Lions will finish their season with another shot at Stanford at the Pacific Coast Rowing Championships on the 12th. I so wish they could go to IRAs, but I understand the cost can be prohibitive. They deserve to be there though (as do some other western crews). There'll be no excuse when the regatta moves west.

More good news for LMU is the fact that lightweight rower Jill Austin has been named to the All WIRA second team. Austin spent some time in heavyweight boats too, but it's great to see a lightweight get some recognition.

Another nugget of news is the fact that LMU will not lose one rower to graduation next year, and has four recruited rowers joining the squad. This is a lightweight program with focus and, if they can just avoid raids by the heavyweights, will begin to see real speed increases. Drawing LMU at Windermere is no longer a rowover.

(Thanks to Coach Conway for the pictures.)

More Individual Honors

2007-05-02T22:26:00.000-04:00

The A10 announced its Academic All Conference team, and two lightweights made the list. Jeanna Heink from Dayton and Abbey Lively from UMass both earned the honor. Heink, who rows in Dayton's light eight has a 4.0 in engineering, and Lively, who races in the light four, has a 3.94 in kinesiology (yes, I did cut and paste that so I could spell it correctly). Those GPAs and varsity athletes? C'mon, that's just not right. What about spreading some of that around to the rest of us?

These kinds of awards are very impressive, but are just anecdotal evidence of the fact that rowers are the smartest athletes. A reader challenged me on that assertion a while ago, and I owe her or him some facts on it. I suspect it will be too busy to get to until the season is over so maybe in the summer. In the meantime, trust me on this - athletic directors love crew programs because they increase the department's average GPA. We are the smartest!

WV Governor's Cup Canceled

2007-05-02T22:22:00.000-04:00

A reader comments:

Races were cancelled before the Light 4+ at the WV Governor's cup. Not before the heavy 4+ though and I swear that the water was the worst I have ever rowed in. A 4 flipped and at least 2 4's and an 8 sank before races were called.

Yikes!

FITD Mid-Season Readers' Polls

2007-04-29T12:45:00.000-04:00

I haven't seen the WIRA or WV Governor's Cup results yet so it's a little early to post these polls, but I'll be unable to post for a few days and I want to get them up. I'd suggest you not vote until you see all results for this weekend.

In the right sidebar, you can vote for the top 10 eights and the top 5 fours. Vote the order you think the boats will be in at the end of the season, i.e. after IRAs. Don't get too wrapped up in lineups and who will get to race whom, just assume the season is over and you're looking back to rank. Make your own assumptions about lineups, about who will actually enter races, and who would win theoretical matchups (especially relevant for the fours).

Perhaps I'm too optimistic, but I think these polls can be the most informative around. It's all predicated, of course, on voters following an honor code. Here is what I think that code should be (I like having just three criteria, but if you have more to add, let me know):

Only vote once.
Vote with your head, not your heart.
Only vote if you can make reasonable guesses for each spot.

I think most readers of FITD can meet the third criterion, so no need to get hung up on it (that's why I use the words "reasonable" and "guess.") Just don't vote if you have no clue beyond the top few. I'll keep the polls up through Friday, with the intention of posting the results over the weekend.

Who's #2?

2007-04-29T10:58:00.000-04:00

There's a little discussion going on in the comments section of my last post that's now ready to bring to the front page.

As I was looking at the results of the Radcliffe - Princeton dual, I began to compare times across races. Now, we all know that you usually can't do this because conditions (including race intensity) vary too much across races. But, like all of you I often do it anyway. I first noticed that the Princeton 2V was faster than Radcliffe's 1V and only 3 seconds off of it's own number 2 ranked 1V. That would make them roughly the third or fourth fastest lightweight crew. I then moved on to the freshmen. Lo and behold the Radcliffe freshmen had the fastest time of the day! Well, now it was time to fall back on the fact that you usually can't compare races, and I let it go.

The first comment to that post pointed out the freshmen time, and I responded with the conventional wisdom, but wondered if the race used stakeboats (which would make times more comparable). Well it turns out they did and, as Aaron Benson (an MIT coach) noted, the conditions were excellent and very similar across all the races. Yikes! It looks hard to deny - the fastest lightweight boat on the water in Boston on Saturday was the Radcliffe freshmen! Yeah, it's only a second and if Princeton was pushed... But wait a minute, were the Radcliffe frosh pushed? Nope. What are those kids eating up there - Wheaties? Or is it superior coaching from Eric Catalano? Whatever, this is one fast boat.

The stage may be set for Sprints, but how about IRAs? I'm guessing that Coach Tucker will keep this boat together for Sprints so they can win a much deserved championship. Then she'll have two weeks to use all the freshmen and put together a faster varsity boat. I doubt the Radcliffe eight at IRAs will look like the boat we've been seeing all season. I thought Radcliffe would have more speed than they've shown so far, but I didn't think it would come from the freshmen.

The Stage is Set

2007-04-28T20:42:00.000-04:00

All the players in today's drama played their roles perfectly. Wisconsin and Princeton both won, as their opponents fell into ranked order behind them. In Indianapolis, Wisconsin beat Stanford by 3 seconds, Georgetown by 11 seconds, and Ohio State by about 30 seconds. In Boston, Princeton beat Radcliffe by 11 seconds.

Both Wisconsin and Princeton were 3 seconds up on Stanford, while Wisconsin has been consistently 11 seconds faster than Georgetown, who was only 5.5 seconds off of Princeton. Wisconsin beat Radcliffe at Knecht by 22.5 seconds, as compared to Princeton's 11 seconds.

We can look at all of that and say that Wisconsin deserves its number one ranking, with Princeton a close second. I look at it and say one more thing - the momentum belongs to Stanford. The Cardinal seems to be the boat that is gaining speed faster than the others. Dare I suggest that this might be Stanford's year? Rowing is funny like that - it doesn't matter how fast you are during the season, it only matters how fast you are at the end.

Well, tuck the mental picture of Stanford standing on the medal dock in Camden in the back of your mind as we move on to more conventional thoughts. Eastern Sprints on May 13th has all the makings of a clash of Titans. While on paper Wisconsin appears to have the edge, the reality is that it's just too close to even hazard a guess. Georgetown and Radcliffe (who also seems to have gained a fair amount of speed) won't let Sprints turn into a two boat race, but we'll all be waiting to see what happens the first time Wisconsin and Princeton line up next to each other this season.

In the 2V, which will be a Sprints event for the first time this year, Princeton handily defeated Radcliffe by 24 seconds. We have yet to see Wisconsin race an actual 2V, so they'll be a complete unknown going into the regatta. More Wisco - Princeton drama.

Princeton's four won their race by 21 seconds. In freshmen races, Radcliffe remains undefeated as they beat Princeton by 16 seconds. The Wisconsin freshmen beat heavyweight boats from Purdue and Ohio State.

Incoming Results

2007-04-28T18:45:00.000-04:00

A Reader posts that Wisconsin won in Indianapolis, followed by Stanford, Georgetown, and (although not mentioned) Ohio State.

Earlier today Princeton defeated Radcliffe.

More when we have some times.

Racing This Weekend - Midwest Melodrama

2007-04-26T19:43:00.000-04:00

The number one crew in the country stays relatively close to home as they travel to Indianapolis to take on Stanford, Georgetown, and host Ohio State. This is the same day as the Indianapolis Invitational so perhaps this race has been inserted into the schedule (or will just take advantage of a buoyed course?). I've also seen this referred to as a double dual, so I'm not sure of the race format, but I hope all boats will be able to race one another.

As expected, this is the biggest non-regatta race of the season. On paper, the Hoyas and the Cardinal are extremely closely matched, and both should have a chance to overtake Wisconsin. The Buckeyes haven't raced crews the caliber of the other three, so they'll want to prove they belong. In previous races Georgetown was 11 seconds behind Wisco and 5.5 seconds behind Princeton. Stanford was 3 seconds behind the Tigers. OSU is untested among the top programs. It's tempting to say Wisco over Stanford by 8.5 seconds, but we all know things don't work that way. Everyone is getting faster here, we just don't know who is improving the most. Wisconsin is clearly the favorite, but I wouldn't expect an easy row. Stanford vs Georgetown should be a barnburner. And OSU, the host, may have a few tricks up its sleeve. This race will give us a much better idea of relative strengths heading into Sprints and Dad Vails.

In Boston, Radcliffe hosts Princeton to decide who takes home the Class of 1999 Cup. In what has been a rebuilding year for Radcliffe, the Black and White could upset the applecart with a win on Saturday. Although at Knecht Radcliffe was 11 seconds back from Georgetown, this is as close to a rivalry race as these two schools get. When the only two Ivy schools with lightweight programs (a disgrace for the Ivy League) race, things don't always turn out as expected. No one knows this better than Radcliffe who went into last year's race as strong favorites, but saw Princeton take the Cup. The 2Vs should provide good racing as I think this will be the first straight 2V lightweight race for Radcliffe. Both boats are relatively unknown to each other and are likely to provide tight racing. The Radcliffe freshmen get another chance to continue their undefeated season. Until last weekend's loss, Princeton looked like the only boat with a chance to bring down the Cantab frosh. That defeat, however, may have only served to make the young Tigers more determined.

WIRAs take place this weekend on Lake Natoma (a future IRA site?). There are strong light four (10 entries) and eight (6 entries) fields. In the light four, Cal, USD, Long Beach State, Willamette, Mills College, Humboldt State, UCSD, Santa Clara, LMU, and Pacific Lutheran will face off. Several of these fours have run into each other earlier in the season, with Long Beach State, Humboldt, PLU, and UCSD showing some speed. Long Beach State may be headed into this race as the favorite, but LMU has an excellent program (I just don't think we've seen them race a four yet) and with some injury and weight issues holding PLU out of the eight, they'll be concentrating on creating a fast four.

In the eight, LMU, Long Beach State, Arizona State, Cal, UCSD, and Chapman are entered. The pecking order has been established among all of these teams except Cal, and this will be an excellent time to disrupt the rankings. Cal has been uneven this season, no doubt the result of injury struggles, and it's not clear where they fall among these crews. I'd say this championship will come down to Cal and LMU and judging by speed relative to Stanford, it should be Cal's. In any case, it should be a good, close race. This kind of turnout is only surpassed by the Knecht Cup and IRAs (for eights), and shows that the West Coast is really starting to become a force in lightweight rowing. A West Coast IRA should only help that process.

At the West Virginia Governor's Cup in Charleston, WV, a five boat lightweight four event is scheduled. Carnegie Mellon, Cleveland State, Wittenburg, and two Duquesne boats are entered. I'm not sure we've seen Cleveland State or Wittenburg race before, but we have seen CMU and Duquesne crank for 2000 meters. At Knecht, Duquesne edged by CMU by 0.2 seconds. Think the Tartan crew is looking forward to this rematch?

The Indianapolis Invitational occasionally has light eights entered in the 2V event. Last year Ohio State, Miami, and Michigan State entered light eights. This year, of course, OSU will be racing Wisconsin, et al.

Last year a couple of light fours raced at the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Rowing Association Spring Championship, the 2007 version of which is scheduled for this weekend in NY.

National Selection Regatta II

2007-04-25T21:28:00.000-04:00

Most of you know that NSR II begins Friday and you ought to take a look at the entries for the Light 2x. I'm not familiar with every one of the women racing, but there are at at least three recent graduates of lightweight programs. Radcliffe's Sarah Bates will race for NYAC, Wisconsin's Katie Sweet will race for Pocock, and another Wisco grad, Claire Wallace will race in a Union/Riverside composite boat. With last year's national team 2x, Julie Nichols and Renee Hykel, in the mix, the target is clear. Rumor has it that this boat has looked vulnerable as a result of injury, so we'll see this weekend how they've recovered.

Heavyweights are constantly surrounded by reminders of the next step, and it's easy for good heavyweights to find encouragement to take that step and move on to the national team. I don't think this is always true for lightweights so from time to time I'll note the doings of our national team crews and hopefuls. As much as lightweight rowing is the future of college rowing (you did know that, didn't you?), it's also the future of international rowing. And guess what? The USOC counts a lightweight 2x medal the same as a heavyweight eight medal. And I guarantee China does.

If It's Wednesday, It Must Be Polls

2007-04-25T20:23:00.000-04:00

The new coaches' poll is fairly uncontroversial. Princeton drops from a first place tie with Wisconsin to second. Given that Princeton's margin over Georgetown last weekend was less than Wisconsin's the week before, this move was expected. It's hard to view the Tigers' performance against the Hoyas as a disappointment, but when someone has to be ranked first, you look at things like margins. The coaches continue to rank Bucknell despite it's plan to only race lightweights at IRAs.

In response to my musings about a possible Dad Vail light eight field, a few readers have wished for that same field to race at IRAs. If a big field from Dad Vail moved on to enter IRAs, in addition to the Sprints schools and at least Stanford from the West, we could find ourselves with more than 12 schools entered. The IRA regatta committee hasn't faced the issue of more than 12 lightweight eight entries for some time and it's not clear what they would do. I suspect (although I don't know for certain) that the field would be held to 12. If this happened, where would that put Bucknell? With their biggest wins (and only races) being victories over Temple and Radcliffe's 2V, would their entry be accepted? How could it be accepted over say, Duquesne, who has also beaten Temple, along with UMass and Lehigh? All of a sudden Bucknell may be playing a dangerous game. Unless, of course, lightweights aren't a concern.

The cMax rankings are also out. The first four places are the same as the coaches and FITD, but UCF is ranked fifth over Radcliffe. This is probably explained by UCF's two races against Princeton. The Golden Knights lost to Princeton by 20 and 25 seconds while Radcliffe lost to Wisconsin by almost 23 seconds the one time they raced. Even though Wisco is higher than Princeton, UCF has some consistent results vs the Tigers while Radcliffe has just one race against Wisco. That's all speculation, however, and the Cliffies have an opportunity to jump back up when they race Princeton this weekend, so it's not worth getting too worked up over.

The second half of the cMax rankings are a bit of a surprise. LMU and Long Beach State are 8th and 9th, while LMU checks in at 15 on the coaches' poll and LBS doesn't appear at all. Could it be that we're all East Coast biased? That's undoubtedly true, but it doesn't mean we're wrong. These boats will race at WIRA, but without Stanford, it will be hard to gauge their speed. In any case, at this point we really have no reason to believe that these boats aren't as fast as Buffalo or Dayton. LMU was only 21 seconds behind Princeton, 18 behind Stanford, and 10 behind UCF. Actually, as I wrote those last two sentences, I started to think that cMax has a point. This is the beauty of these kinds of computer rankings, they challenge your assumptions and make you consider your biases.

Whatever these rankings say, I'll be running the FITD reader polls after this weekend's racing. Other commitments may force me to put them up Saturday night, but I suggest you wait until after all racing this weekend before voting. They'll be up for a week and I'll include a fours poll (although I think I'll only have you vote for the top five fours - tell me if you think I should do top ten).

More From Last Weekend

2007-04-24T18:00:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday Lehigh and Penn State reprised their Murphy Cup battle, with Lehigh once again victorious. The Lehigh light eight won this dual by 13 seconds, increasing their 4 second Murphy Cup margin over the Nittany Lions.

On Sunday, Lehigh's light four went up against rival Lafayette, but with decidedly different results. Lafayette won the race by 26 seconds. This is a nice win for a Lafayette boat that has been racing and seeing steady improvement as a result.

At the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships, Marist handily won the light four event over second place Iona, who was followed by Loyola and Manhattan. The MAAC is another conference that awards team points for the lightweight event.

Following up on the pairs race at the Midwest Sprints, a reader noted that there was a cross wind of 17 mph with gusts over 25 mph, causing several non-Wisconsin boats to scratch. Yikes! Speaking of Wisconsin, another reader wondered where the Wisco 2V has been all season. That's a good question. As I understand it, the 2V event has been added to Sprints with the understanding that the Sprints programs will support it, so I assume that Wisconsin will race one there. Wisconsin had 2 eights in the heavyweight 2V event at Midwest Sprints, one of which won, [although a reader notes that was the novice lightweights racing a heavyweight 3V or 4V.]~~so I doubt that numbers are a problem. I don't know when Wisco will break out the 2V in a lightweight race, but given that the boat is faster than their own heavyweight 2V, I'd say it has some speed.~~ [The Wisconsin 2V remains a mystery.]

[Update: A reader noted that at NCRC four of the seven light four entries failed weigh-ins, leaving a three boat field. PLU won, followed by Willemette and Seattle Pacific.]

The UMass Light Eight

2007-04-24T17:43:00.000-04:00

A reader wrote to say that the UMass light eight that raced at A10s last weekend was not the same boat that raced MIT. With one exception, the A10 boat was crewed by novices. It sounds, however, like there may be some hope that the Boston UMass boat will race again.

Thinking about the UMass light eight racing, makes me think of Dad Vail. It's plausible to me that we could have light eight entries from Dayton, UMass, Buffalo, Duquesne, Lehigh, Temple, and Philadelphia. Looking at past results, we could see boats from Villanova, Ohio State, and Purdue. UCSB and Cal have also competed recently, as has UCF. Without ECAC to pull entries, there could be a great field at Dad Vail, full enough to require heats. Some of these boats, like UMass, may think about not racing a light eight so they can put their four top rowers into the light four. For those considering that, I have just one word - Pittsburgh.

Saturday's Racing - The Top Tightens

2007-04-22T09:29:00.000-04:00

Number one Princeton's first opportunity to measure itself against a Sprints foe on Saturday, resulted in a 5.5 second victory over Georgetown. What does this tell us? Not much, and a lot. It tells us Princeton is fast, but perhaps not as fast as Wisconsin who beat Georgetown last week by 11 seconds. It tells us Georgetown is fast, but perhaps not as fast as Stanford who came within 3 seconds of the Tigers last week. Then again... Princeton was racing on an unfamiliar course, times were fast making spreads a little tighter, and Georgetown didn't sit still for a week. All told, probably worth a few seconds. But in the end, here's where we are - neither Princeton nor Wisconsin have reason to believe one is faster than the other, and the same can be said about Georgetown and Stanford. Georgetown and Stanford are close to the two leaders and getting faster, making both viable threats to knock them off. Here's the best part - Georgetown, Wisconsin, and Stanford all race each other this weekend in Indianapolis, along with host Ohio State.

The Georgetown freshmen surprised Princeton with an emphatic 11 second win, after losing to the Tigers by 3 seconds at Knecht. Princeton's 2V continued to show the depth of that program with a dominating 27 second victory over Georgetown.

Radcliffe, meanwhile, who has (temporarily) slipped off the edge of the radar screen, posted an 18 second victory over MIT. Radcliffe's 2V was a little over 8 seconds back from MIT. The good news for MIT, though, came in the four, which remained undefeated among lightweights as it beat Radcliffe by a little over 20 seconds. It would really be nice to see MIT and Pitt race down a course somewhere. Radcliffe's freshmen continue to hammer all opponents. A steadily improving Radcliffe crew takes on Princeton this coming weekend in Boston.

At The Big Row, Stanford took care of Cal in both the eight and the four, winning the eight by 11 seconds and the four by 49 seconds. Stanford also put a scare into the Cal heavyweight 3V [earlier in the day], losing by a little over 3 seconds. ~~I'm not sure which race was first.~~ Not a terribly trying day for the Cardinal, but in case you've missed this point earlier, Stanford is fast.

At the A10 championships there were four boat races for both the eight and the four. (It's amazing what awarding team points will do for an event.) In the eight, Dayton recovered from a lackluster, and fatiguing, Knecht to win the title over Duquesne. Although Dayton beat Duquesne earlier in the season, at Knecht the Dukes looked to be the faster crew. Dayton would have none of it, however, as they retain their A10 title by 14 seconds. Duquesne was followed 5 seconds later by a surprising Temple crew that finished 5 seconds ahead of UMass. UMass looked like they could be strong after their MIT dual, but apparently that race was more a sign of an off day by MIT than a really fast UMass boat. Duquesne, who has come out of nowhere this year to really make some noise in the lightweight league, won the four in a championship record time of 7:56.0. Three seconds later came UMass, followed by URI and LaSalle. URI is no doubt racing the remnants of the old lightweight squad when an opportunity presents itself, while LaSalle probably put a boat together in an attempt to earn some team points. I'm beginning to wonder if the A10 is where we'll see the next wave of strong lightweight crews emerge. Of the four eights racing for the championship, three are racing regularly this season, with UMass also racing once outside of the championship. With lightweights scoring team points at this regatta, there is an incentive to develop good lightweight crews. It doesn't happen overnight, but this shows how lightweight team points can help the growth of the league.

At the Midwest Rowing Championships the Wisco lights were everywhere. Highlights include a win in the novice eight over several of their own heavyweight boats as well as Northern Michigan, a 4th place finish in the heavy four behind their own heavies but ahead of Drake, and a win in the heavyweight 2V over their own heavies. In the heavy V8, the Wisco heavies retained the boathouse speed crown along with the boathouse weight crown as the lights came in third behind their boathouse mates, 18 seconds from first place. One other race of note was the 2-. It was populated completely by Wisco lightweights. I love to see college rowers rowing small (2x/- or 1x) boats because it is so incredibly helpful for big boat rowing. As an opposing coach, I would hate to see 10 Wisconsin lightweights racing pairs.

In the light four at SIRAs, Georgia continues to dominate the south, defeating second place Auburn by 14 seconds. Clemson was third, followed by Washington University. Purdue won the novice light four by 38 seconds over the College of Charleston, who was followed closely by Warren Wilson. UT Chattanooga and Auburn were fourth and fifth. Purdue has put out some fast lightweight crews in years past, so maybe this is a sign of a resurgence.

The UConn light four was back on the water, beating two Buffalo boats by 8 and 17 seconds. Later in the day the Buffalo light eight defeated heavyweight 2Vs from Eastern Michigan and UConn.

On Mission Bay Chapman and UCSD raced lightweight eights, with Chapman rowing to a 5 second victory. Maybe it's a Stanford halo effect, but it seems to me we've seen more light eights racing on the West Coast this season.

There is a race report, but no results, for a tri-meet among Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne, and Pittsburgh. The Duquesne women were at A10s, but it looks like there was a CMU-Pitt light four race scheduled. [Update: A reader comments that Pitt won.]

Picture = 1000 Words at Windermere

2007-04-19T20:55:00.000-04:00

You'll remember that one of the races at Windermere involved a three boat clash among Cal, ASU (mixed), and Princeton's 2V. This was unusual because the Windermere course is only two lanes. A picture was posted to row2k that shows this race headed down the course. Princeton is up, but Cal and ASU are locked in a tight battle. It's clear from this shot that Cal had the toughest steering job since they had to maneuver from their start in "lane zero" back onto the course. This shot also gives you an idea of the effect of the wind on the second half of the course, as it looks like all three boats are steering to starboard after being blown to port coming through the bridge.

Races This Weekend

2007-04-19T19:33:00.000-04:00

This weekend's top race takes place in Washington, DC, where the Georgetown Hoyas welcome the Princeton Tigers. The two crews meet for the first time in a sprint race since last season, when Georgetown defeated Princeton 2 out of 3 times. Princeton comes into this race as the favorite, but that status is based entirely on two fall races, which happened a long time ago. If you want to know how little those races mean now, just ask the Hoyas who lost to both Radcliffe and MIT at the Charles. The coaches seem to reflect conventional wisdom and have Georgetown ranked fourth, a fair amount back from the Tigers. cMax, however, tells a different story as the Hoyas are ranked third, and predicted to be only about 4 seconds back, a margin similar to Stanford's vs Princeton. Add in the fact that the Hoyas are racing on home water and I'll take Georgetown and those four seconds. In fact, I think this race is a toss-up. Either way, it's a critical race for the Tigers, as it's the first Sprints school they've met this season. The outcome here will be used by everyone to measure an enigmatic Tiger boat against the top of the lightweight field. By the way, Stanford should be cheering for Princeton here since they almost rowed down the Tigers at Windermere. A fast Princeton boat means a fast Stanford boat. This is one race I'd like to see.

In Boston, Radcliffe faces MIT. This race provides a perfect opportunity for MIT to regain some of the momentum they lost last weekend. The Engineers have some talent and it will resurface sooner or later, with this weekend's race against a hometown rival a likely time. Radcliffe who, as we heard, is experimenting with lineups and techniques, will want to nail down the special sauce recipe before Princeton comes to town. A strong outing here may do that. With a fours race on tap, MIT will bring an undefeated boat to the line. On paper, the eight should be a Radcliffe win. With some motivated MIT rowers showing up, I don't think it will be so easy. And, given the MIT novice's performance last weekend, they may even give the Radcliffe freshmen a race.

Back at Cooper River this weekend is the Atlantic 10 Championship. Given who we've seen race eights so far this season, we could have a four boat light eight event with UMass, Dayton, Temple, and Duquesne. If that's the race, we could have quite a battle. UMass and Duquesne should be close and although Dayton was back from Duquesne at Knecht, racing with fresher legs may pull them right into the fray. Temple, with a lot of novices in the boat, is getting faster, but probably won't be able to hang with the other three. A light four will be contested as well, although it's not clear who we might see there. I should note that the A10 championships are one of the few regattas of which I'm aware that award points for lightweight events that count toward the championship. If more championships did this we'd have more lightweight boats. That's an easy one.

SIRAs take place in Oak Ridge, TN this weekend, and include a light V4 and a light N4. Warren Wilson, Purdue, Chattanooga, College of Charleston, and Auburn will race in the novice event, while Auburn, Georgia, and Clemson will race in the varsity four. We've seen the V4 race before, at SERCS, which was won by Georgia. Virginia Tech was originally the lone entry in the light eight. I don't know if they're still coming (I believe only two boats are making the trip), but it would be an awful shame if they were still willing to race and no one stepped up to provide a challenge. I wonder if there are lightweight boats racing as heavies who could help keep their own category alive.

Wisconsin turns out the entire boathouse on Saturday for the Midwest Championships. I did my Ode to the Midwest Sprints last year so I won't repeat it again. I'll simply note another once great regional championship brought nearly to the point of ruin by the NCAA (the guardians of our collective collegiate athletic heritage).

In Redwood Shores, Stanford takes on Cal in the lightweight version of The Big Row. Cal is just now recovering from some injuries and certainly has their work cut out for them. I think Stanford will have bragging rights for another year, although not for lack of effort by a valiant Cal crew.

The NCRC Championship will be held Saturday on Lake Stevens, WA. There's no schedule so I'm not sure if there will be any lightweight events, although there will be crews there who have raced lightweights previously. Teams include PLU, SPU, Lewis & Clark, Puget Sound, and Willamette. Last year there was a light four event. As an aside, the current Pacific Lutheran Athlete Spotlight is a lightweight rower, Audrey Knutson. (I'm dying for a Mr. Green Jeans sandwich!)

Finally, another rivalry row takes place Saturday, this one in Pennsylvania, as Lehigh takes on Lafayette. I'm not sure if Lafayette has a full light eight, but they do have a four, which should provide good competition for Lehigh.

Radcliffe Eschews Euphemism

2007-04-18T20:37:00.000-04:00

Radcliffe Heavyweight Wins Over Columbi a - Radcliffe release on last weekend's racing

It is what it is, isn't it?

New Rankings

2007-04-18T19:29:00.000-04:00

Both the USRowing Collegiate Poll and the cMax rankings are out. First, let's look at the coaches' poll.

Wisconsin and Princeton are tied for number one. This sounds about right to me. Both crews have been impressive - Princeton in a series of races and Wisconsin in one major regatta. After Princeton races Georgetown this weekend we should have a little better idea of their relative strengths. Stanford jumps way up to number three while Georgetown drops one place to fourth. If you look at the points, though, you'll see that these two crews are awfully close. I agree with this as well. Stanford in three is really a bit of a reward for coming out so strongly after a mediocre season last year. Georgetown didn't really lose the third slot as much as Stanford took it. They'll race in Indiana in a week and a half so shed no tears for the Hoyas now. Radcliffe and UCF look about right at 5 and 6 also. The thing about Radcliffe, though, is that they won't sit quietly at five. They have a few tricks up their sleeve and I still think the Princeton dual will be a race to watch. Radcliffe will be at home on a familiar course, and it could turn into a Princeton nightmare.

After a not-so-great week, MIT moves up a spot, largely at Bucknell's expense. Bucknell comes in at eight, which is interesting because if Bucknell puts together the light eight it had last year (they lost two), I don't think any voter thinks they'll be eighth at season's end. I think this ranking reflects some voters who felt they couldn't be ranked because they haven't raced enough, and some voters who put them higher in the list. My feeling is obvious - if they don't race, they can't be ranked. Next come Buffalo, Dayton, and Lehigh. Buffalo had a good Knecht, but Dayton and Lehigh finished behind Duquesne. Why are the Dukes way down at 15?

So, some quirks, but not a bad ranking. Again, I think it's important to note that 15 legitimate (we'll give Bucknell the benefit of the doubt) lightweight eights are ranked, with more racing. It's certainly a more robust category than the DII heavyweights, and it is showing strength.

Now let's turn to cMax. One reader already expressed frustration at the latest cMax release. A couple of points to remember - only crews that have raced two other ranked crews can be included, and the rankings improve with more qualifying races.

So, the first question is, How can Wisconsin be ranked 14 seconds faster than Princeton? Followed by How can Wisconsin be 17 seconds ahead of Georgetown when they only beat them by 11 seconds? Let's take the second question first. Now, I didn't create this system and I'm not an expert, but I like it and Chris Maxwell has explained some of it to me now and then, so let me give it a shot. I think about these time spreads as averages. In other words, given the races that have occurred to date, on an average day, we'd expect Georgetown to be 17 seconds behind Wisconsin. We rarely see and average day, however. If the two crews raced again with the same 11 second spread, no doubt cMax would be much closer to 11 seconds as well. It's still a bit early, and in Wisco's case it's very early, so take these with a grain of salt. That's not to say they're wrong, just that they'll improve with more races to feed into the black box. (Read a bit more about that black box here.)

What about Princeton? Well, I don't know the answer to that, but the formula apparently liked the quality of Wisconsin's few wins over the quality of Princeton's several. It's hard to argue against that, isn't it? Princeton beat Stanford by three seconds, a crew that, until that point, had only raced some West Coast crews that don't normally figure into the national rankings. If you're an objective observer, which the cMax engine is, everything's still a bit of a mystery. We're asking questions based on biases we hold from seasons past, but the fact is, overall, the quality of Wisconsin's victories is higher than that of Princeton's.

Stanford, Radcliffe, and UCF seem to fit, but OSU looks like an aberration to me. OSU has really only raced heavyweights at this point (qualifying races), so their ranking is bound to be squirrelly. Some amazement was also expressed at Wisco ranking 13 overall. Again, we're fairly early in the season so don't get too hung up on this. One thing that plays into my biases, however, is Wisconsin's estimate of 0.7 seconds faster than Bucknell's heavies. I've said that the IRA champ should beat the Dad Vail heavyweight champ, and this suggests that's true. Again, let's not get too hung up on this so early, but I see nothing here to lessen my faith in cMax. Remember, one of the reasons we use computer rankings is to try to take emotion out of the process. So when your emotions tell you they're wrong, you can't be surprised. Last year, before Sprints when Princeton looked like the fastest crew, cMax told us it was Wisconsin. cMax was right.

No Water Time? Join the Club

2007-04-17T21:58:00.000-04:00

We've heard a lot of crews (no, I don't just mean Wisconsin) complain about their lack of water time this season. There seems to be no relief in sight. Pictures of Princeton's flooded boathouse were all over the internet today. I wonder what impact the weekend's storm had on Washington, DC? If the Hoyas can get back on the water before the Tigers, they may just be able to gain an advantage, and in Saturday's race, any advantage could make the difference.

Going back to the weekend for a moment, the George Mason presser highlights the light four's performance.

Crossing the Buoy Line

2007-04-17T19:46:00.000-04:00

On Fight in the Dog, I do my best to stay totally on topic. This blog began with lightweight women's rowing, it continues with lightweight women's rowing, and when it ends (yes, there is a predetermined end date) the last words written will be about lightweight women's rowing. In some ways, I'm the prototypical blogger - I use this blog to offer my opinions, while trying my best to give you an opportunity to offer yours as well. In other ways, though, I'm the antithesis of a blogger - I never write about myself or about blogging, mostly because FITD isn't about me or about blogging, it's about you (and both of the other subjects are pretty boring). Nonetheless, I follow the happenings in the "blogosphere" fairly closely. I watched the meteoric rise of Twitter (and briefly considered using it for race results) and subsequent backlash. I listened to bloggers pontificate about the Kathy Sierra mess (I have a code of ethics for you - your parents). I watched with amusement as the silly "Z List" and "Five things you didn't know about me" memes circulated. They're all pretty much irrelevant to me because of my focus.

A few days ago, however, a reader, Susan Ito, nominated me for a Thinking Bloggers Award, and said some very nice things about FITD in the process (and made me self conscious about my writing!). This was truly above and beyond the call of duty.

The point of these things is to pass them along, something I would normally ignore, but because I felt that Susan's mention of FITD was a bit more than a gratuitous listing I thought I would use it to write a post mentioning some blogs that might interest you. Because I haven't found too many blogs covering lightweight women's rowing (well, OK, any), I have to stray a bit from my focus and look at all of rowing. Unfortunately I haven't found many blogs covering the broader world of rowing either, although some new ones have recently sprung up. Because of this dearth of rowing blogs, I'll be miserly with the award, but mention some of the newer blogs as well as some that mix rowing with other things.

If it's thought provoking you want, I have to nominate Alan Thomas's Rowing Science blog. Alan's been missing in action lately, but he usually comes back with a flurry. He rarely posts something that you don't think you need to read.

Despite the fact the Rowing News sometimes seems to be lightweight women's nemesis, they host Kip McDaniel's excellent blog. The writing is as good as the insights. In his latest post, on The Boat Race, he validates my criticism of "rowing gymnasts" when he says, "Throughout these five minutes however, we were also calm. Looking at the video afterwards, I was impressed by how relaxed we looked compared to Oxford. Whereas every stroke showed on their tense faces, we showed no emotion at all. We look cold and calculated."

Longtime supporters of FITD are Coach Jay and "Emily, the long-suffering coach's wife," who blog at Launch Exhaust. Coach Jay coaches a high school crew and, although he occasionally writes on non-rowing topics, he frequently has thought provoking posts on coaching, rowing, and training.

"TheOarsman" at First Light is also a FITD reader. Unfortunately TheOarsman, a sometimes lightweight, is injured and his posts can be a bit depressing right now. On the other hand, he should make you happy to be healthy and able to spend hours a day sitting on your butt and going backwards.

Any list of rowing blogs has to mention Xeno Muller's blog, Indoor Rowing. Xeno (also a FITD reader) a former Olympic gold and silver medalist in the 1x, blogs in support of his businesses, Iron Oarsman (check out the video) and his RowPerfect distributorship, but often has excellent posts on training, racing, and rowing.

Rebecca Caroe, a RowPerfect dealer in the UK, mostly blogs about business (ugh) but also mixes in some rowing.

Finally, I need to mention two new blogs, both of whom are written by FITD readers. The first is Sculler's Deck by Scott Wisniewski, a former college rower, now sculling at Undine in Philadelphia. Scott plans to cover the entire spectrum of rowing, from junior to elite and from training to rigging.

The second new blog, as many of you know, is College Rowing, written by Mahalo. As the title suggests, the blog will cover all categories and levels of college rowing. Mahalo frequently comments on FITD and will obviously have more to say at College Rowing.

Finally, not a rowing blog, but a rowing post, is this piece from S. L. Kim on Printculture. Although I ultimately disagree with its premise, I like it because it nicely describes the intellectual sacrifices of a college rower and a professor's perspective of what the athlete misses. Every high school rower who wants to row in college should read this. After you've read it though, let me tell you where I disagree. I think Kim's underlying premise is that time spent rowing is time lost to education. Rowing is education. Pick any college rower and ask her if time spent rowing was wasted. To a woman, she'll say that the sport was an integral part of her education. Many will say they learned more on the river and on crew road trips than in the classroom. We all make trade-offs. Would we wonder the same thing about a violinist? If her time spent practicing was time better spent in the classroom or lecture hall? The trap for athletes is being too lazy to make time for lectures and seminars. Finding it easier to hang out with teammates than to make non-rowing friends. College is a time to expand your horizons, to learn new things, to learn to think, and to question. Rowing is part of that, but it's not the only part.

Sorry, I'm not sure why I got on that soapbox! If anyone knows of any other rowing blogs, post them in the comments and let us all in on the fun.

Wingnuts and Washers - Links From the Weekend

2007-04-16T19:41:00.000-04:00

To round out the weekend's racing, here are some links to school pressers:

Starting in California, Stanford has a release on both Saturday's races and Sunday's. Princeton's own release on Windermere is here. UCF's Saturday release is here and Sunday's release is here. LMU's release is here. It's never good when a release starts off, "Lions Gain Experience..." but I think LMU is an improving team. Their losses were worse last year (except to Stanford who was having a bad year) and they have a victory over a pretty decent Long Beach State boat. I'm not sure what LMU's plans are, but they've been racing a light eight pretty regularly over the last few years, are getting faster, and can become another consistent, high quality lightweight program on the West Coast to complement Stanford and Cal. By the same token, as a young crew that watched its 2006 veterans get sucked into the heavyweight squad, UCF should be pleased with their victory over LMU.

Moving to the Knecht Cup, Wisconsin's release is here (I would've sworn it said something a bit different earlier in the day), and Radcliffe's is here, with a much more interesting Crimson article here. The article points out something I missed - Radcliffe's V8 raced in the heavyweight event as well as the lightweight event. With the regatta compressed into one day, although I don't recall the timing of the races, this had to affect the Black and White's performance. The article also reveals that Radcliffe is doing a lot of experimenting, both with lineups as well as with training techniques. This all makes me think that Radcliffe has another card to play, with the deal likely coming on April 28th. Dayton's Knecht presser is here, and reveals that several members of the light eight also raced in the heavyweight 2V race just before the light eight heat.

Finally, I come back to the MIT-UMass race. From readers' comments it sounds like the race took place under some terrible conditions, but that the results are correct. As a result, we need to get the UMass lights into the rankings. MIT can't have been happy with their race, but they'll get a chance for redemption, even if it's not against UMass. Speaking of which, hopefully we'll see that UMass boat race next week at A10s and I hope Coach Dietz is thinking about IRAs.

Other Races This Weekend

2007-04-15T17:26:00.000-04:00

MIT and UMass squared off in Boston with UMass taking a 7 second victory over the MIT novice eight. MIT's V8 is listed 2 seconds later followed by the MIT novice B boat. I'm not sure what to make of these results, not because I doubt UMass's speed, but because I would question MIT's novices going faster than the varsity. Maybe someone can tell us more?

The Cal lights raced heavyweights at the Santa Clara Invite on Saturday, finishing fourth behind St. Mary's, Santa Clara, and Sonoma State.

In Newport Beach, Chapman and Long Beach State raced light eights, with LBS winning by just over 7 seconds.

PLU and Puget Sound raced, but no events showed lightweight boats.

In Ohio, OSU's Ohio Cup was canceled as a result of permitting issues.

Windermere Crew Classic - Princeton Wins, But It's Stanford's Regatta

2007-04-15T16:17:00.000-04:00

While the rest of the lightweight league warred on the East Coast, Stanford, LMU, and Cal welcomed Princeton and UCF to the West.

On Saturday morning Stanford handled LMU with an 18 second win, followed by a reprise of the Princeton victory over UCF, this time by 25 seconds. The afternoon races resulted in Stanford defeating UCF by 25 seconds, while Princeton knocked off LMU by 21. Wow! What better set-up for a Sunday Princeton-Stanford showdown could there be?

At the 500 meter mark of that Sunday showdown, the Tigers were out to a 3 second lead, and spectators could be forgiven for expecting a comfortable Princeton victory. It was not to be, however, as the Tigers only picked up another second and a half by the 1k mark, and then watched the Cardinal slowly move back. Princeton won the race, but by a mere 3 seconds, with Stanford turning in a faster final 1000 meters. It was hard to see much detail on the Web cast, but in the last 500, over which Stanford was a second faster, it looked like Princeton was struggling to get out of their puddles while Stanford maintained their length. Last year I believed it was UCF who would come roaring back from a less than ideal season the prior year, and this year I've said that it would be Stanford. It looks like I was right.

Also on Sunday, UCF and LMU, both holding 0 and 2 records at the regatta, met for the final lightweight eight showdown. In a race led by UCF the whole way, the Golden Knights defeated LMU by 10 seconds. Both of these crews came into Windermere and ran into buzz saws in the forms of Princeton and Stanford. They rowed well, but the Tigers and Cardinal were just too strong. In LMU's case, they competed against three of the top crews in lightweight rowing and acquitted themselves well.

The Princeton 2V was also at Windermere and finally got that race against Cal's heavyweight 3V. Cal jumped out to a 6 second lead by 500 meters and only gradually lengthened it from there, ultimately winning by 20 seconds. It was a tough row for Princeton as they faced a head wind which was an advantage for Cal the Tigers could ill afford to give up.

In the Princeton 2V's second race, on Sunday, they faced the Cal lightweights and Arizona State. Sam Chang, who wrote the Windermere preview on row2k, told me that ASU brought 4 lightweight rowers and their entire heavyweight boat with them, so the boat faced by Cal and Princeton was at least half heavyweights. This was the three boat demolition derby race with Cal, in lane zero, the most likely to run into trouble. Although the race ran off schedule so the results aren't listed, spotters tell me Princeton had an open water lead by the bridge, with Cal and ASU locked in a tight battle behind. Princeton maintained and lengthened its lead, winning by a couple of lengths open, with the Cal - ASU duel uncertain. Cal had to maneuver through the bridge so they clearly had a disadvantage, but whatever the outcome, the Golden Bears raced down a heavyweight crew from ASU, a nice result for a boat that hasn't had a lot of time together this season. Princeton's 2V, meanwhile, apparently put together a good race and showed their speed.

At the end of the day, a Stanford light four dominated a Cal light four, winning by 57 seconds.

With Stanford's resurgence Princeton begins to look vulnerable and the West Coast begins to become a larger factor in lightweight rowing. Princeton flies back east knowing they have yet to find the answer, and Stanford goes home with a new confidence and the understanding that by IRAs they should be contending for a medal. This result, combined with that from Knecht, makes me rethink the relative strength of the top crews. While I still believe Princeton is capable, I think Wisconsin is once again the crew to beat and that Stanford is in the top three. Next week's Princeton-Georgetown dual will tell us more, with the Stanford, Georgetown, Wisconsin, OSU race in two weeks looming especially large.

Knecht Cup Eights - They're Baaaack

2007-04-15T14:50:00.000-04:00

There was no shortage of questions coming into the eights event at the Knecht Cup - could Georgetown maintain its slight 1 second edge over Radcliffe, how fast would Wisconsin be in its first race of the year, and could any other eights stay up with the three Sprints schools?

Heat 1 looked like a rowover for Wisconsin, and so it proved to be as the Badgers finished 29 seconds ahead of the Radcliffe 2V, with Buffalo finishing another 4 seconds back. Needless to say, Wisconsin was in control from the start.

Heat 2 quickly became a two boat race between Radcliffe and Georgetown. Radcliffe pulled away in the second half as the Hoyas, clearly executing a race plan, cruised to the finish rowing low and long. A moderately surprising Duquesne boat finished third to knock Lehigh out of the grand final.

By the time of the late day final, it was clear that Wisconsin was the crew to beat, and that Georgetown and Radcliffe had bigger worries than who was the fastest between them. Ultimately, the final played out like one more year tacked on to Groundhog Day, with the Radcliffe and Georgetown boats filled with Phil Connerses, praying to wake up from their nightmare. By the 1000 meter mark Wisconsin was ahead to stay, winning the event by 11 seconds. Georgetown and Radcliffe had a battle going for a while, until the Hoyas pulled away to take second, 12 seconds ahead of the Black and White. The Radcliffe 2V took fourth, followed by Buffalo and Duquesne.

Wisconsin hasn't actually won Knecht since 2002, reflecting what has been traditionally a late starting crew. At this point, I would normally talk about how little time Wisconsin has on the water this early in the season, and it holds true for this year as well. Because of the squirrelly weather, though, I'm not sure if it's been much less than the other northern crews. Has Wisconsin become an early starting crew, or has the water time simply evened out? Or, even more frightening, are the Badgers off to their usual slow start with the usual amount of speed yet to be gained?

The Georgetown-Radcliffe duel also proved to be anticlimactic, as the Hoyas opened up space between themselves and the Black and White. Radcliffe continues to have a bumpy season, reflective of the rebuilding effort going on in Cambridge.

Turning to the freshmen, the Radcliffe eight continued to dominate, winning the event by 12 seconds over Princeton, which was 3 seconds ahead of Wisconsin [and] Georgetown[, who crossed the line in a virtual dead heat. (The official results incorrectly reported Georgetown's time.)] ~~and~~ Philadelphia rounded out the field. Princeton and Wisconsin also made it to the grand final of the heavy frosh eight event, finishing fourth and fifth respectively.

Wisconsin's performance at Knecht was impressive, if not entirely unexpected. Things were a bit more interesting on the West Coast however, and we may need to rethink the rankings...

Knecht Cup Fours - Surprising Boats, Except One

2007-04-15T11:49:00.000-04:00

"It's gonna be a close one." This was the opinion of one UConn rower as she and her boatmates looked at the results of the women's light four heats at the weather compressed Knecht Cup. The three heat winners, Georgetown, UConn, and Pitt, were all within 0.3 seconds of each other. Two of the Pitt crew were at the results board at the same time and, after hearing the remark, as they walked away, one gave the other a look that could only have been interpreted as, "Yikes!" In retrospect, I wonder if it didn't have another meaning.

For spectators, the race begins around the 1k mark, because that's the first time you can really make out who has a lead (and then only if you squint really hard). At the halfway mark in heat 1, Georgetown was out in front of Duquesne and Buffalo, rowing relatively smoothly at a higher rate than the other boats. On this breezy day, the Hoyas weren't throwing up much spray. By the 500, Georgetown had the race won, and Buffalo was vainly trying to stay in contact with Duquesne. Maintaining it's rate through the finish, Georgetown won by 11 seconds over Duquesne, which secured its grand final spot by 15 seconds over Buffalo.

In heat 2, UConn, George Mason, and Radcliffe all looked to be within striking distance of each other at the 1k mark. By the time they reached the 500, the race had become a UConn, George Mason battle. Interesting, because there were four different strokes going on in the GM boat, but somehow they were in the thick of it. UConn pulled ahead in the last 250 with more of a power sprint than a rating sprint, winning by 6 seconds over George Mason, who was 19 seconds ahead of Radcliffe.

In heat 3, the heat predicted to be the fastest, Susquehanna came off the back early, leaving Carnegie Mellon, Wisconsin, and Pitt fighting to reach the 1000 first. By the 1k it was a CMU, Pitt race, but it was soon clear that Pitt was in control. Pitt had no need of a sprint as the Panthers won by 21 seconds, with second place CMU 10 seconds ahead of Wisconsin A.

All of which brings us to the "It's gonna be close" final. Unfortunately for me, life intruded at this point like a roommate who changes the channel during a Jack Bauer cliffhanger, and I was unable to see the race. I can only imagine Pitt, UConn, and Georgetown stealing glances at each other as they locked onto the stakeboats. Finding their point as they wonder if they need to win this race with the start or if they'll have a second go at it in the body. Tensing as the starter brings them to attention for their biggest race yet. Then somehow, over the next 2000 meters, a funny thing happened - it wasn't a "close one." I imagine that Georgetown and UConn were in it at the 1000, but then had to succumb to a superior force. I'm told that a sign of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in one's mind at the same time. Knowing that rowers are the most intelligent of athletes, the Pitt crew was no doubt amazed that they were taking this race in dominating fashion, while at the same time understanding that they were simply witnessing the inevitable occurring. Pitt beat second place Georgetown by a lucky 13 seconds, while UConn was another 4 seconds back. This victory solidifies Pitt's position as the class of the national light four field, and sets up Dad Vail as a potential national championship race for fours. It goes without saying that Pittsburgh should be extremely proud of this race, but still wondering who might show up at Dad Vail. Is there a fast Nova Southeastern boat out there? What about Georgia, or even Lawrence? Pitt, or should they somehow lose at Dad Vail, the Dad Vail winner, deserves a shot at the remaining Sprints fours - MIT comes to mind. If we're lucky, someday we'll have fours at IRAs.

So what happened to Wisconsin and Radcliffe? Clearly, one of the Wisconsin boats was a novice four. The other four rowed better, but not quickly, so it's not clear who was in that boat. Wisconsin only had one eight, so their 2V athletes were available, which doesn't tell us much about what the Badgers were up to. Radcliffe raced a second eight, leaving few rowers available for the four, with at least one member of the crew a walk-on freshman. Despite this, we take absolutely nothing away from Pitt's victory. Whether a result of different priorities, or because they're on the wrong side of the Line of Hope, Pitt's competition is now forced to recognize them as the top four in the country. With a 2V race at Sprints this year, the EAWRC programs may be concentrating more than usual on two eights, which makes an IRA fours event all the more desirable. If Pitt wins Dad Vail, the Panthers will deserve a shot.

As for that Radcliffe walk-on, her parents, who flew out from Chicago, filled the role of freshman walk-on Mom and Dad perfectly. As Dad fretted that her boat was behind, Mom talked about how what mattered was how proud she was that her daughter was part of this odd sport. Trust me, in a few years Mom will either rip the guts out of anyone who suggests her daughter's boat might not win, or she'll be unable to watch any race with a family member involved. Dad will believe himself a far superior coach to Cecil Tucker.

More Racing This Weekend

2007-04-13T19:27:00.000-04:00

Windermere and Knecht Cup aren't the only races this weekend, although they'll get the lion's share of the attention.

One of the more interesting matchups pits MIT against UMass. I don't recall seeing a UMass light eight race yet this spring, but the program doesn't put out "just-for-the-heck-of-it" boats. Given the lack of water time MIT had before the Princeton/UCF race, I don't think their results there were a fair indication of their speed. They'll have a chance to prove me right on Sunday. By the same token, if UMass intends to race a lightweight boat more frequently this season, now is the time to make an impression.

In Dublin, Ohio, Ohio State is sponsoring the Ohio Cup. A light four event will be contested among OSU, Miami University, and Cleveland State. To retain its status as a potentially dangerous crew, OSU needs to win this race. The heavy eight event will include OSU's lights, entered as the B boat, racing against their own heavies, as well as those from Xavier, John Carroll, Denison, and Case.

On Saturday Chapman hosts U.C. Santa Barbara, U.C. Irvine, and Long Beach State. These schools have boated lightweights in the past, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a light eight or four here. Long Beach State came within 3.5 seconds of LMU while Chapman beat ASU at the Crew Classic. UCSB won Dad Vails a few years ago (but hasn't been heard from since) and it would be nice to see them back in the lightweight fold. This could be a good light eight race.

On American Lake in Washington, Puget Sound takes on Pacific Lutheran at the Meyer Lamberth Cup. PLU has boated a light eight, although I'm not sure about SPU. Hopefully we'll see a lightweight race at some point in the day.

On Sunday on Carter Lake in Omaha, Creighton hosts the Upper Midwest Collegiate Sprints. A light eight and a light four are on the schedule, although no word on entries. Creighton has raced a light four this season, finishing only 5.5 seconds back from Tulsa.

Knecht Cup Preview

2007-04-12T22:00:00.000-04:00

Windermere is big, but the biggest race of the weekend is in Camden, NJ at the Knecht Cup. Knecht has become the most important non-championship regatta for lightweights and this year's version is no exception. The conflict with Windermere has removed Princeton, and possibly UCF and Stanford from the mix, but at the end of the day Sunday, we'll have a much better idea of who's fast and who's not.

We'll start with the light fours. After my brush with greatness on Monday (aka email to the race director), an "inside source" must've contacted officials because the heat assignments were redone. The heats look to be more fair and, while Heat 1 is possibly the weakest, I don't see anyone with a free ticket to the grand final. In the first heat Villanova, Georgetown, Duquesne, Susquehanna B, and Buffalo square off. Although they lost to Radcliffe, Georgetown seems the obvious pick here, but second isn't so easy. Duquesne has beaten Dayton, not exactly a slouch crew, while Buffalo beat, and finished a close second to, a fast Tulsa four in a scrimmage. Susqhehanna B is an unknown (but slower than the A boat) and Villanova was 5th at Murphy and lost to the UConn four. My guess is that Georgetown and Buffalo make it into the grand.

Heat 2 has Lafayette, UConn, George Mason, Radcliffe, and Wisconsin B. I'd say Radcliffe is the top pick, helped by their 17 second victory over the Hoyas a few weeks ago. This heat is the first time a Wisconsin boat will have raced this spring, so we don't really know how fast they'll be, particularly a B boat. They won't be slow. UConn has a 34 second victory over Villanova under it's belt, while a young Lafayette crew was 4th at Murphy, about 4 seconds ahead of Villanova. George Mason is unknown to me. My guess is that Radcliffe makes the grand with UConn and Wisco B fighting it out for the second qualifying spot. I'll go out on a limb and pick UConn as the second qualifier.

Heat 3 may be the fastest heat, with Sacred Heart, Carnegie Mellon, Wisconsin A, Pitt, and Susquehanna A. Again, Wisconsin is untested but we all know they'll be fast, particularly their A boat. Pitt, which won Murphy Cup, is tested and they are fast. Meanwhile, I think Carnegie Mellon gets the Hard Luck Award as they're in a two to move heat with two of the fastest boats in the regatta. CMU was second at Murphy Cup so they have some speed, but will it be enough? Susqhehanna, third at Murphy, is in second place for the Hard Luck Award. They've no doubt gained some speed since Murphy, but they'll need to have gained quite a bit to move on to the grand final. Sacred Heart, 6th at Murphy, will no doubt be hanging on for dear life in this one. I see Pitt and Wisco moving on to the grand.

In the eights, Dayton, Wisconsin, Buffalo, Temple, and Radcliffe B face off in Heat 1. This will be the debut of the Wisconsin eight and, although there are some good boats in this race, I expect them to be in control, working to stay safely ahead of the field while expending as little energy as possible. This won't be as easy as it may seem. Buffalo has already beaten Dayton by 8 seconds over 1500 meters, a loss that will help spur Dayton on. Radcliffe's 2V has shown speed with a victory over Georgetown's 2V. A young Temple boat will learn what it's like to play with the big girls. The schedule says three boats move on to the grand final, and my guess is Wisconsin, Buffalo, and Radcliffe, although Dayton could pull this one out.

Heat 2 will show us Lehigh, Georgetown, Radcliffe A, and Duquesne. We won't have to wait long for that Radcliffe-Georgetown rematch, but this won't be it. Both boats should pull away from Lehigh and Duquesne and unless bravado takes charge they won't be racing each other to the finish. Lehigh and Duquesne won't exactly be over the horizon, although I expect Lehigh will take the third qualifying spot.

Saturday finishes up with the frosh lightweight eight. Philadelphia, Radcliffe, Wisconsin, Princeton, and Georgetown are entered. The Radcliffe boat that dominated in the fall has one victory under its belt over Georgetown, while Princeton has beaten MIT and the Bucknell heavies. Wisconsin is untested but always fast. As for Philadelphia - Yo Philly! Welcome to your first varsity season! (I love to see new programs get their feet wet in races like this. It shows them what they can do with some hard work. And sometimes, you find a new program that has already put in the hard work, and they surprise everyone - this is a frosh event after all.) You've got to give the favorite label to Radcliffe, but I think this race is wide open.

The Princeton and Wisconsin (at least) frosh eights are also entered in the heavy frosh event. Unfortunately, just like last year, they are both in the same heat.

The finals are Sunday at 7:30am for the four and at 10:30am for the eight. (The times tell me that the Knecht Cup HAS NO IDEA what they have here.) Saturday looks like a decent day, weather wise, but Sunday looks like trouble. With wind and rain forecast, we may be lucky to have early morning races.

We have one of the best weekends of the season coming up. In the eights, we look forward to Wisconsin's debut and the Radcliffe-Georgetown rematch, while the fours will tell us just how fast Pitt really is. Rain or shine, it will be a great series of races.

Lightweight Rankings

2007-04-12T21:40:00.000-04:00

As alert readers have noted, the lightweight women's Coaches' Poll has been released. I don't think there are any real surprises among the top 10, with the top five being Princeton, Wisconsin, Georgetown, Radcliffe, and UCF. Bucknell comes in at 6th, and this highlights a difference between the poll and what I try to do on FITD. On FITD I try to rank crews as they race through the season. For that reason I can't slot in a crew that hasn't raced other boats in the top 10, like Bucknell. The poll, as I understand it, is really a current view of how the coaches think the season will end up. Although we don't know if Bucknell will race the IRA, if they do we all suspect the boat will be fast. Hence, they get ranked in the coaches' poll, but not here.

The coaches seem to agree that Stanford's 2006 was an aberration and they're back. Oddly enough Marist, which I don't think will be racing a light eight this year, comes in at 15. While not ranked, Tulsa, which only raced a four, received some votes for an eight. Removing those two crews, however, still gives us 21 boats that received votes in the poll. That's a lot of boats! I know, I know, the speed varies widely among those boats, but growing numbers isn't a bad place to start. Compare that to the DII poll - and those boats have their own NCAA championship.

I think that I will turn over the rankings in my sidebar to you, the readers, competitors, and coaches. If I can have a poll here at the season start (as I did), midway through, and just before IRAs, I think that would be more meaningful than my own opinion. For this to work, we need to follow an honor code which says, vote once, vote for all ten places, and vote your head, not your heart. I think you'll do that, and that will give us the best poll in rowing. I start to run out of space, but I'll do it for fours as well, maybe a week later.

Speaking of Bucknell, last year when I questioned Bucknell's policy of not racing their light eight against lightweights (other than one race), but racing against heavyweight jayvees, I was reprimanded a bit and told they did it because there wasn't enough competition in the lightweight league. Neighbors Georgetown, Radcliffe, Princeton, et al. didn't seem to have that problem, but ok, let's go with it. Now comes this year and I'm struggling to reconcile what is happening with last year's explanation. This year Bucknell races the top ranked lightweight eight in the nation, but boats only heavyweights. Is Princeton not competition for the Bucknell lights? Then how can they be competition for the heavies? Do the lights beat the heavies? Then, Bucknell races Temple's lights, and boats a light eight. Temple is not in the top 15 of a league that Bucknell has complained offers no competition. I struggle to understand. Maybe it's this - Bucknell's lights had no competition last year so they raced heavies. Bucknell's heavies have too much competition this year so they race lights. Is that it? How then, do we explain the Temple lightweight race?

Look, I'd rather see Bucknell jump into IRAs at the end of the season than skip it. But what I'd really rather see is some lightweight leadership from the Bucknell administration. With some of the best lightweight athletes and one of the fastest boats in the country, the Bison should be an example of how to strengthen the category, not how to game the system. As once great lightweight events languish for lack of entries at the San Diego Crew Classic (life support), Dad Vail (life support), and ECAC (dead), I fear someone is using, not supporting, the category to burnish a resume.

Comment Clarification

2007-04-12T21:31:00.000-04:00

In a comment to my post, "The End of URI Lightweights?,"a reader stated that URI would be racing at EARWC Sprints as a guest team. The ECAC has clarified this by saying that has yet to be determined. I am told that

Both Holy Cross and URI have applied for membership to the EAWRC and both are contending for the opening that exists this year. The results of the Knecht Cup this weekend will help determine which team gets invited, or if neither will be invited.

Windermere Update

2007-04-12T19:08:00.000-04:00

Cal dropped me a line to say that they will be racing the eight Sunday at Windermere. It will be a three boat race with ASU and the Princeton 2V.

Now, the Windermere course is two lanes.

Only two lanes.

Apparently you can fit three boats at the start, but then comes the bridge at 1000 meters. Dang! If these three boats get there at the same time, the sinking of the Chinese eight at HOCR will look like a fender bender!

Just one more reason to get to Windermere on Sunday.

Windermere Crew Classic Preview

2007-04-11T22:00:00.000-04:00

Racing this weekend will be overshadowed by the Knecht Cup and, to a lesser extent, by the Windermere Crew Classic. We'll start with Windermere in Redwood Shores, California. This is a regatta at which the participants are treated like queens and kings, particularly the out-of-towners. In some cases (all?) local Windermere real estate offices pick visiting teams to cheer for and root for those crews all weekend. Those of us who have rowed on the West Coast know that it's a great place to be and I hope the region develops more lightweight teams in the coming years.

For our purposes the racing kicks off on Saturday at 1108 as Stanford takes on LMU, followed by a reprise of Princeton vs UCF. I'll start off by saying that I think Stanford will be a lot faster than most people expect. They clearly toyed with the other crews at the Crew Classic and after a pretty crummy spring last year, the Cardinal will be ready to strut their stuff. LMU has a good boat this year (I think significantly faster than other years, if they get all their best lightweights in it), but they'll have their hands full. I'm not saying this will be a blowout, but I think Stanford will take this one. Princeton and UCF just raced last week and although the Golden Knights probably got faster over the week, I don't think it's enough time to make up 20 seconds. For UCF to have a chance here the Tigers have to have a bad row and UCF needs a great row.

At 1226 Princeton's 2V is scheduled to take on the Cal heavyweight 3V. Cal's heavyweights are currently ranked 5th in the nation so although the schedule says 3V, I assume this boat can hammer. I bet Cal is talking about not embarrassing the little lightweights. This matchup was also scheduled last year, but never took place; hopefully this year is different. Prediction? I have no idea, but this could be the most intense lightweight race of the regatta. I'd love to get a picture of these two crews lined up next to each other!

Saturday evening the crews switch as Stanford takes on UCF and Princeton battles LMU. Last year UCF went west for the Pacific Coast Championships looking for revenge against a Stanford crew that just beat them at the IRA. The tables are turned this year as it's Stanford's turn to prove they're contenders. This should be one of the more exciting races at the regatta. A good win by Stanford might make some Tigers lose sleep Saturday night. First, of course, Princeton needs to get by LMU. Just as with UCF, LMU will need a great race while Princeton has a bad one to see an upset here.

Sunday begins with the Princeton 2V taking on Arizona State. This will be some good racing experience for ASU, but I expect Princeton to take this one. At 1130 Stanford takes on Princeton followed by LMU vs UCF. If you can only make it to the race course one day, make it Sunday (ooooh, except maybe for that Princeton2V - Cal heavy 3V matchup). This is a big race for Stanford as they'll take on the current top ranked lightweight boat in the country. If Princeton lives up to its billing, it will be a difficult task for the Cardinal, but it's because of that "if" that we race. A better race than some might expect, but Princeton should win. The LMU - UCF race will be a dog fight. Easties (and Stanford) are used to LMU being a gimme, but that won't be true this year. If their top lightweight boat makes it to the starting line (and I assume it will) UCF will have a race on its hands. It's awfully early in the season to make predictions, so to me this is too close to call.

At 1230 a Stanford four takes on a Cal four. I expected Cal to be racing an eight, but injuries kept them from the Crew Classic so I'm guessing that they're not quite healed yet. That's a tough break.

I like Windermere and I like how Stanford gets East Coast crews to travel West. It's great to spread the lightweight karma around the country and get good crews racing each other no matter where they're located. That's what elite college sports are all about. It calls the bluff of those crews, located in the heart of the eastern lightweight concentration, who complain about having to race as a lower level heavyweight boat to find good races. These Windermere programs are committed to lightweight rowing and put their money and effort where their mouths are (and yes, Stanford has traveled to Knecht in the past). Speaking of which, part of Princeton's commitment to the league is bringing two boats West. I, however, would've been tempted to only take the 1V and race the 2V at Knecht. That 2V is a pretty fast boat and it would've been interesting to see what it could have done.

cMax Rankings

2007-04-11T21:39:00.000-04:00

As a reader already noted, the cMax rankings are out. With only a few races under our belt this early in the season, they're not as meaningful as they will be later. As you know, I really like these rankings. They take the human element out of it (although that isn't always bad) and rank based only on cold, hard, facts. Because lightweight women is one of the categories with the fewest participants (DII will eventually have less), the rankings can be difficult. For example, a crew like Bucknell, that for the most part doesn't race lightweight boats until the IRA, may never make it onto the ranking because they have no category results (for this same reason they're not on my list). For an explanation of how these rankings are put together look here.

Chris Maxwell does an incredible job of gathering the data and crunching the numbers for these rankings. Just imagine tracking every single race reported on row2k and you'll get only some idea of the effort he puts into it. Chris has been kind enough to help me out with data from time to time and I'm grateful for it.

I could embellish the Windermere and Knecht previews with predictions based on these rankings but as Chris notes, "with so many teams not in the rankings yet, it's a little premature to start predicting team strength." Tempting though it may be, I'll wait until we have more data.

The End of URI Lightweights?

2007-04-11T21:22:00.000-04:00

The coaching regime change at URI was made permanent on Monday, probably sounding the death knell for URI's lightweights. I have no idea why the old coaching staff left, but under Coaches Julia Chilicki-Beasley and Tina Paniel, the URI lights were seen as a "permanent fixture." Since Coach Shelagh Donohoe came on board it appears that URI has only occasionally raced a light four of opportunity.

It's exciting when a varsity program supports lightweights and I thought URI might become the next UCF. This is very disappointing, but not entirely surprising given all of the factors that I discussed in my last few posts. URI is a DI rowing school competing against the Princetons, OSUs, Cals, and Browns of the world. When we see them coming as close to winning the NCAAs over those schools as they might to winning the IRA (5th in 2004, before last year's emphasis), we can declare the move a success.

Is Oklahoma OK?

2007-04-10T21:04:00.000-04:00

As a reader pointed out, Tulsa is absent from the light four event at Knecht. You may recall that Tulsa had an excellent row at the Head of the Charles (as evidenced by its fall season number four ranking) and I for one was looking forward to seeing how they would make out this spring. As a result, I wrote to Coach Kevin Harris to see what happened. Coach Harris responded by saying that the crew has suffered injury and sickness and is done for the year (~~didn't this happen to Pitt last year?~~ [Update: see comments; I should've remembered this.]). He's clearly disappointed as is the crew. As a varsity program that is giving some attention to lightweights, I was pulling for the Golden Hurricane to have a successful spring. We shouldn't get too worried though, as Coach Harris goes on to say:

[W]e are still working hard to promote lightweight rowing at TU and I expect that we will be back with a more solid team next year. We'll be looking, with envy, at all of our lightweight colleagues races this spring! We wish we could be there.

In more news from Oklahoma, I see that Oklahoma City University is adding sculling to its program. This is the men's program but FITD readers know that I'm a big proponent of sculling and this is a good step. [Update: See comments - OCU is also recruiting lightweight women scullers!] There are problems that go along with it, of course, beginning with finding opponents. Nonetheless, I applaud the move. Isn't it funny that some of the freshest thinking is coming from Oklahoma (e.g. night racing), a place until recently viewed as a rowing backwater? Heck, we even have a pretty good lightweight team there!

I'd love to see a quad take over from the four, but again, there are some logistical problems with that. The next time I get on a conference call with FISA and the IOC, I've got the new Olympic program for them - only the fastest boats in each class (i.e. 8+, 4x, 2x, 1x), and both sexes and weight classes in each boat class except eights, which will only have heavyweight men and women. That would result in more international participation (because there are more lightweights) while cutting the total number of rowers by two (an IOC goal). It would be more exciting (faster boats) and more inclusive. Hmmm, maybe I should send that idea to the NCAA too.

Rowing News Ignores Lightweights - Again

2007-04-10T19:42:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's post put me in a belligerent mood, so before I get back to this weekend's races, I may as well air it all out. In it's latest issue, Rowing News (the establishment mouthpiece) published an article discussing the greatest eights of all time. A difficult proposition to be sure, and several eights are discussed. Several, that is, for each category - heavyweight men, heavyweight women, lightweight men, and, and, and.... Yes, that's right, it ignores lightweight women. Why cover three categories and not the fourth? Are there no great lightweight women's eights? Hard to believe given that we've seen three incredibly dominant programs - Radcliffe in the 90s (and earlier), Princeton in the early 2000s, and Wisconsin now (plus a surprising Villanova in 1998). No boat in there was great? Given that the great boats were only compared against others in their category, by definition there MUST be a great lightweight women's eight. Or, could it be that Rowing News considers the category to be so weak that there is no boat worthy? There is a promised second part, that will cover junior crews! Junior crews are worthy but collegiate lightweight women are not!? As always, Rowing News refuses to publish letters from me (sorry, I'm not going away), so if this bothers you as much as it does me, please write a letter to the editor. You can reach him at letters@rowingnews.com.

Rowing News also has a story about women's heavyweight rowing ten years after the first NCAA championship. Much time is spent on the growth in numbers and visibility of heavyweights brought on by NCAA recognition. Readers of FITD know that I appreciate this aspect of NCAA involvement and that my principle beef with the NCAA is the way it has marginalized lightweight women. Despite all of the problems and the NCAA's continuing lack of understanding of the sport, if lightweights were offered an NCAA championship I'd take it in a minute. In a world where most people are afraid to think for themselves (even athletic directors), the NCAA imprimatur would enable lightweight rowing to grow far faster than without it.

In a sidebar (of course) to the story, Chip Davis makes two points I've been making for almost two years now (could he be a secret reader?):

Highly competitive student-athletes continue to race to tight finishes each year in weight class events. But collegiate lightweight women still crown their national champions in the shadow of men's events at the IRA. Recent tragedies with wrestlers trying to cut too much weight combined with a heightened concern for eating disorders have kept lightweight events out of the NCAA. Some coaches have also bristled at the idea of splitting limited talent between two categories.

Hallelujah! Credit to Chip here for speaking the truth. I've talked to coaches, lightweight and heavyweight, as well as NCAA officials, and nearly every single one has denied that weight and eating disorder concerns play a part in the NCAA's antipathy toward lightweight women. As Chip points out, that's ridiculous, and that's why I spend time on FITD questioning the sensational eating disorder articles we see in the press and the "scientific studies" that, failing to prove a connection between today's lightweight athletes and eating disorders, go on to discuss how "common sense" tells us otherwise so we need to be careful. My point is not that uncontrolled weight loss isn't dangerous, but that today's lightweight women's programs control it and produce healthy athletes. I won't even get into the lack of studies looking at the obesity problem and heavyweights, but turnabout is fair play, isn't it? I've begged for scientific studies that produce a comparison of eating disorder prevalence among lightweight women and their college age peer group, but have yet to find any.

The negative feelings of heavyweight coaches (not all, of course) toward lightweights that Chip mentions has also been mentioned to me by lightweight coaches. This is why the CRCA does not and cannot represent the interests of lightweight women.

In the article, Jim Dietz (who was interviewed on FITD) hits upon the solution for lightweight women when he says:

Although the NCAA voted to make us a team sport, where a team consists of two eights and a four, I think the sport would be better served if we were an individual team sport, where each boat had to qualify on its own merits, its own speed.

He's talking about expanding the boat classes here, not specifically about lightweights, but allowing boats to qualify individually would open the door for lightweight boats.

Look, we all know that heavyweight women's rowing is the ethanol of college sports - unable to exist at current levels on its own, but thriving through the gift of government regulation. If you're a plug-in hybrid in an ethanol world, you've got problems. You need to get some of that regulation for yourself. You know it's not the right way to do it, but if it's there, you need it to compete. Given the inflated amount of money and attention lavished on heavyweight women, it's a testament to the strength of lightweight women's rowing that it can exist at all.

Yeah, I'm on a bitchy jag right now, but when I see the kind of interest a goofy little blog like FITD can generate; when I see how many women row lightweight or want to row lightweight; when I see incredible but normal sized athletes crank down race courses moving big boats really fast, I get a little upset when they're ignored by the rowing world. I've said many times here that we're all in it together, but sometimes it sure doesn't feel like it.

Boat Priorities - NCAA Style

2007-04-09T20:41:00.000-04:00

Over the past several days, we've had two related discussions going on in the comments section of various posts. They tie together and I think they're important enough to bring to the front page.

The first revolves around the relative competitiveness and intensity of racing at NCAAs vs. IRAs. I (and others here) have argued that last year's IRA was as intense and competitive as last year's NCAA, if not more so. While I think the competitiveness of the two events is an important discussion, it's been discussed here quite a bit, both on the front page and in comments, and I've yet to hear a reasonable argument to support the NCAA side in 2006. I'll leave competitiveness at that. A reader commented, however, that "If any of the UCF lightweights make a boat and race at NCAA's, they will step up to a higher level of intensity than they have ever experienced."

Now, I don't think that this intensity discussion is particularly important or fruitful because intensity is a function of many things, not simply the importance of the race. Unlike "spectacle sport" athletes, rowers derive intensity from the competition against themselves as well as their opponent; from the the battle for perfection. I've experienced practice pieces as intense as championship races. Intensity of any race or regatta will vary from year to year and from event to event.

I understand why the reader who posted the comment above wants to hold that view. I understand that we've been conditioned to believe that something about the NCAA legitimizes a championship that mere mortals can't handle for themselves. Nonetheless, I completely reject the notion that in any given year the NCAA championship is more intense than the IRA championship. That position is unsupportable by any objective means. (By the way, the opposite proposition is also unsupportable.) Let's go back to 2006. I was at both the NCAA championships and the IRA championships. The surprises and back and forth nature of the IRAs have been discussed many times here and I assume are familiar to the reader. The NCAA championship was over within 20 strokes. That's right, 20 strokes, and by 500 meters Princeton had open water on the field and for 1500 meters simply countered any boat silly enough to attempt a move. I can't imagine a less competitive race. Oh, wait, I forgot that the slower boats frothing in Princeton's wake were in a battle too, for the team trophy (aka the "national championship"). And that brings me to the next point of discussion.

For many years, when you raced a dual or a regatta, there were only two questions to answer - Did you win? and Did you sweep? While there were point trophies, no one really cared about them because if your boat didn't win, they were simply self esteem trophies. It wasn't until the NCAA got hold of rowing and deemed it a "team sport" that we were told we need to care about point trophies (this is a different discussion if we're talking international rowing). We need to care because now, the point trophy is really the "national championship." Well, let me tell you a secret about point trophies - no one cares. Let me say that again - NO ONE CARES. Well, except the winners who see it as the next best thing to a sweep (maybe it is) if they won the V8, or see it as a self esteem trophy if they lost the V8. Whenever I read about the "national champion" Cal women, I laugh.

Look at the men, however. We all know who won the V8 at IRAs - Cal. Cal is the National Champion. Do you know who won the point trophy? Is there a point trophy? Give truth serum to a member of the Cal women's V8 last year and ask her if she'd rather be a "national champion" or winner of the V8. What do you think she'd say? I know what she'd say. The NCAA has distorted rowing's priorities.

It is this distortion that has had a deleterious effect on lightweight women. In another comment, when discussing lightweights rowing with heavyweights, a reader noted that " the point is that maybe it ought to be about the fastest BOAT, regardless of class year OR size of the rower." I agree with this point completely. This is why heavyweights will always take precedence and always be more glamorous. It's when we get beyond that fastest boat that things get dicey.

To me, there is a natural priority of boats when the sport is unencumbered by outside influences. That priority is:

Heavyweight 1V
Lightweight 1V
Heavyweight 2V
Lightweight 2V
Heavyweight 3V4
Lightweight 3V4

This priority assumes all six boats can be equally competitive in their categories (an unlikely assumption). After the heavy 1V, the light 1V is comprised of the best rowers in that class. If we bother to create the class, it's best rowers get priority over the second best rowers in another class. Priorities adjust when certain boats are not competitive (I'll come back to this).

Under the NCAA regime, the priorities are as follows:

Heavyweight 1V
Heavyweight 2V
Heavyweight 3V4
Lightweight 1V

This is a complete distortion of the sport's historical and natural priorities. Under the guise of a "national championship" the lightweight category has been relegated to rowing's backwater, ignored by the NCAA, the CRCA, and athletic directors. As one poster said:

There should be lightweight V8 and V4 events at NCAAs, not as part of the heavyweight team event, but as an entirely other category, they same way DII and DIII programs have their own championship. From what I can tell, there are far more competitive Lightweight programs than there are DII programs.

Unfortunately, as long as rowing is a team sport, this can't happen. Lightweights can only be added as another event in the "national championship" which would mean that all contenders would need to boat a lightweight crew. Let's all hold our breath for the CRCA vote on that, shall we?

Sorry for the length here, but one last point. If the heavy 1V looks like it will be cannon fodder, but the light 1V could be competitive, a coach has a strategic decision to make. With the NCAA involved, every coach will still go with the cannon fodder heavyweights, when perhaps it would be best for the program to go with a nationally contending light 1V. Same for a light 1V - this was the point of the Line of Hope. If the lights are cannon fodder, they go back to a heavy 2V or 3V4. This happens all the time.

There's the straw man, set a match to it if you will. Of course you'd like a shot at the heavy 1V over the lightweight boat, but please skip the "NCAA think" and be honest with yourself before you tell me how you'd rather be wallowing around in a heavyweight JayVee than contending for the national championship in a lightweight Varsity.

A Tale of Two Emails

2007-04-09T19:20:00.000-04:00

When the Knecht Cup schedule came out last night, two things jumped out at me immediately - the stacked third heat in the light fours (also noticed by at least one reader), and the absence of Georgetown in the regatta. Finding both a bit curious, I thought I would write the regatta director and Coach O'Connor to see if I could learn more.

Those of you who know the Knecht Cup regatta director are already chuckling, I'm sure. He is a bit, oh, shall we say, mercurial? Anyway, sometimes the devil on your shoulder gets the best of you, and I sent him an email wondering if the light four heats were seeded and, if so, how it was done. I noted that I thought the third heat was a bit stacked. Here is his response:

If coaches have a problem they can email or call me, I do not need an outside source jamming up my email. Also the schedule will not be final until tomorrow after the scratches, additions and it is reviewed.

Given that he responded at all, it was quite civil compared to what I thought might come my way. Actually, most people I write to outside of women's lightweight rowing view me as "an outside source jamming up my email." In any case, although this wasn't stated on the web site, the schedule is apparently not set. Since the squeaky wheel gets the grease, coaches can email the regatta director here.

As I mentioned, I was also surprised that Georgetown wasn't listed anywhere on the schedule. I wrote a quick email to Coach O'Connor asking why they didn't plan to race. I quickly received a response saying, "There was a mix-up in communication that has been addressed and we will be racing in Camden this weekend. We will be racing a Varsity Light 8, Varsity light 4, Frosh/Novice Light 8 and 2 Freshman 4s." Not that the other crews entered don't make a good field, but the more the merrier so this is great news. When I suggested that the Hoyas might be the favorites this weekend, Coach O'Connor politely pointed out the quality of the rest of the field, and in particular noted that as reigning national champions with a talented group of athletes, Wisconsin should be considered the favorites at every race until they lose. The response of a gentleman, and one in marked contrast to what we might expect to see in other sports.

More From the Weekend

2007-04-08T20:24:00.000-04:00

Lehigh's lightweights got a race in on Saturday as their heavyweights raced Drexel in Philadelphia. The lights jumped into the heavyweight V8 race, finishing 33 seconds back from their heavies and 29 seconds back from Drexel's heavies.

On Friday, Villanova raced UConn in Connecticut in a dual that included a light four race. UConn won by 34 seconds.

At the John Hunter Regatta in Oak Ridge, Georgia won the light four, although an Emory boat jumped in to break up a Georgia one-two finish. Georgia's A boat won by 16 seconds over Emory, followed by Georgia B, Auburn, Clemson, and Chattanooga. As the UGA light fours continue to do well, it's worth remembering the Lawrence four that beat both boats at the Clemson Sprints at the end of March. As we look around the country at these fours races, names begin to be repeated in the victory column and by the time Dad Vails comes around we might have a pretty good idea of who the favorites will be.

Georgia also won the light eight at John Hunter, beating Virginia Tech by over six seconds and Auburn by over 34.

Wisconsin's scheduled race in Indiana was canceled due to poor weather conditions.

Results and stories are now out on the Princeton, UCF, MIT races yesterday. UCF story here, and Princeton story here.

One of the more difficult things to do in lightweight women's rowing is to try to rank fours. So many light fours races are added on to heavy duals, all over the country, that it's difficult to track them all. On top of that, schools don't always race their top fours, but there is no way of knowing. Nonetheless, we'll try here to keep up an in-season ranking, a ranking which will get it's first changes as a result of this week's racing. With MIT beating a Princeton four, the Engineers move into second, and with Lawrence's victory over Georgia in March, they move onto the list at ninth. [See comments for more on UGA's light fours. It sounds like they'll be one of the top contenders at Dad Vails.] In another week or two, I'll start to prune the ranking of those fours that haven't raced in the spring. This weekend's Knecht Cup will be an important race for all of the non-EAWRC schools, because it will really be their only chance to race the Sprints fours. (We'll talk more about that in the Knecht preview.) The Knecht schedule isn't out yet, but I'm hoping for full fields all the way around.

Saturday Races

2007-04-07T21:29:00.000-04:00

Although UCF may have suspected psychological warfare, the Golden Knights arrived in Princeton earlier in the week to a swirling snow squall. For some, it was their first glimpse of the white stuff. Unfortunately for both UCF and MIT the reception never really got warmer.

Although the results aren't yet posted, a reader wrote in to say that Princeton won the V8 race by several lengths open, followed by UCF in second, a length ahead of Princeton's 2V in third, which was a length ahead of MIT. Princeton's freshmen beat two MIT frosh boats (great situation for the Engineers to have two frosh boats), despite catching a boat stopping crab during the race. The first heat of the afternoon fours race was taken by Princeton while the second, and faster, heat was won by MIT with Princeton second and UCF third.

This was a race that had a little bit for everyone. Princeton was strong and maintained it's status as favorite. A young UCF crew beat MIT and jumps them in the rankings. MIT showed that they can still put together a formidable four, while the eight is likely suffering from that most curable of problems - early season conditioning. Princeton's 2V, meanwhile, shows that if it were a separate school, it would deserve a ranking easily in the top ten.

In Rhode Island, Radcliffe raced in the 2v event against Bucknell, URI, and BC, finishing fourth. A difficult two weekends for the Black and White as after losing to Georgetown last week, the 1V finishes 20 seconds behind a Bucknell 2V that only beat Princeton's lightweight 2V by a little more than 3 seconds. The Radcliffe frosh continued their dominating ways as they defeated URI and BC heavy freshmen. Bucknell, in what looked like a potential IRA boat, put a light eight on the water for the 3V race, which included Radcliffe's 2V. Bucknell beat the Black and White by 30 seconds (and the URI 3V by 15). It would be nice to see a Bucknell lightweight eight race someone in the top ten so we can see their speed and get them ranked.

With such a dominating freshman boat and a varsity that is struggling a bit, it wouldn't be surprising to see a freshman or two move up to the varsity. It would be unfortunate for that freshman crew, but it's all about the V8.

Duals (and More) This Weekend

2007-04-04T14:00:00.000-04:00

Radcliffe heads to Rhode Island on Saturday to meet Bucknell, Boston College, and URI. BC doesn't race lightweights and it appears URI has tossed in the towel, so I don't expect either of those teams to offer lightweight competition for Radcliffe. The information clampdown continues at Bucknell so we'll wait with bated breath to see if the Bison race a light eight or a heavy eight. Although the State Secret is still secure, I expect we'll see a heavy eight and, at this point, this is what I hope to see since a Radcliffe-Bucknell heavies race will give us a means to compare the Black and White with Princeton. Like Princeton's race last week, this will be a bit of a gimme for Radcliffe since they'll probably be racing all heavyweight boats. There will be some added pressure however, to come within Princeton's 10 seconds of the heavies. Conditions can make such a comparison wildly inaccurate, but why let that stop us?

Princeton, meanwhile, is back on the water as UCF and MIT come to visit. This is scheduled to be an all day affair with eights in the morning and fours in the afternoon, but it's not clear if that will happen and who will be in the fours. With UCF's 2006 IRA boat raided by the heavyweights (as we've discussed previously), and MIT only recently moving back onto the national stage in eights, expectations will be high for the Tigers. A stumble here would not be the way to start the lightweight season. Despite the loss of UCF lightweights, I don't exactly think the Golden Knights will be sending scrubs up north to face MIT and Princeton. The boat hasn't been tested yet against top notch lightweight competition, but that doesn't mean it's slow, only unknown. A good showing here sets the stage for the remainder of the season, which includes a Princeton re-match at Windermere. MIT has to be energized to start the season after a good fall campaign. Let's remember that this is a crew that beat Georgetown at the Head of the Charles. Clearly the Engineers have potential and despite being a bit rusty, they'll no doubt be feeling their oats on Lake Carnegie.

Two other duals to note - Lehigh races Drexel (which should be a heavyweight affair) and Cal races Santa Clara. Cal's race with Santa Clara should provide the Bears with a nice gauge of the progress they might be making against Stanford. Well, actually, all we know is that Stanford beat Santa Clara. Since they were timed scrimmage pieces, spreads were not reported.

To go back to UCF for a minute, a reader commented a few weeks ago that the the UCF lightweights that were taken by the heavyweight squad "are not being allowed to return for IRA's." If true, none of UCF's IRA crew will be rowing lightweight this year. As far as I know, the NCAA would allow these rowers to return unless the heavies went to the NCAA championship. Perhaps this is the coach's decision? Or, perhaps the heavies are so certain of a NCAA invite that they just assume the lights can't return. After coming close to an IRA medal last year, it's got to be difficult to spend a season toiling in the heavyweight 2V (a few are no doubt in the 1V) simply so the team can win the consolation prize at regattas (also known as the team championship). Once again we can thank the NCAA for creating the absurdity that causes 2V and 3V four events to be favored over a 1V lightweight event.

Pop Inspiration

2007-04-03T21:17:00.000-04:00

I'm not much for getting inspiration from celebrities (who often have a lot in common with bags of hammers), but I did find something Hugh Laurie had to say quite interesting. I'm sure by now you know that the star of "House" was a rower, as was his father (an Olympic oar in the latter's case). You can read what Laurie has to say about his father here, but I suppose it all comes down to this: "If you’re trying to hold back, if you don’t commit, you’re never going to get results."

As an aside, occasionally life interferes with rowing, and for me one of those times is this week. I'll be a bit light here over the next few days, but I'll be back at it for the weekend.

Lightweight Roundup

2007-04-03T21:07:00.000-04:00

The UMass Daily Collegian has a story about UMass's racing at the Yankee Cup. In it, coach Jim Dietz has some high praise for his light four (which lost to a URI boat): "These people are really racing and you can see it."

Stanford released a presser on the lightweights' win at the Crew Classic.

The Harvard Crimson published a story on Radcliffe's (both lights and heavies) struggles over the weekend.

The Windermere Crew Classic schedule is out.

Regattas This Weekend

2007-04-03T19:38:00.000-04:00

The South finally swings back into action on Saturday at Georgia Tech's John Hunter Regatta on Melton Hill Lake. The regatta includes a five boat light four race and a three boat light eight race. The light four event includes Auburn, Chattanooga, Clemson RA, and two Georgia boats. With the exception of Chattanooga, these boats met at SERCS, and the two UGA boats won comfortably. We'll see if this will simply be an UGA race or if the other crews have increased their speed enough to give the Bulldogs a run for their money. In the light eight Georgia, Auburn, and Virginia Tech square off. I don't recall any of these crews racing a light eight this season so this race should be wide open.

Wisconsin kicks its season into gear as it's scheduled to race in the Indiana Championships. This is mostly a Wisco-Notre Dame-Indiana heavyweight affair, but since it's on the lightweight schedule it looks like the Badgers will get a few races in (I'd pay money to see them knock off a Notre Dame heavyweight boat). I would call the start of the Badgers' season, "highly anticipated." Going after their fourth straight national championship with some senior losses and a new coach will make for one exciting run by Wisco. It's not that I don't think they'll be in the hunt, in fact, just the opposite - I'm anxious to see how they do it this time. Will they peak differently, will they row differently, will they race differently? Will the new era continue the old?

With Wisconsin and MIT racing this weekend, all of the top ten schools will have opened their seasons.

NCRC and URAC

2007-04-02T21:32:00.000-04:00

At the NCRC Invitational last Saturday, Long Beach State won the light four by 16 seconds over UCSD and by 18 over the University of Puget Sound. The UCSD four previously beat a heavy four from UC Irvine (as well as its own heavy four), so Long Beach State must be pretty fast.

At the University Rowing Association Championships in Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon won the light four/JV four race. CMU beat Wash U., Rochester, Wash U. lights, and Case Western, finishing 19 seconds ahead of second place. A nice win for CMU as they try to gain ground on Pittsburgh.

Crew Classic

2007-04-01T19:53:00.000-04:00

At the Crew Classic in San Diego, Stanford easily (36 seconds) outdistanced the competition, Chapman and Arizona State. While I missed the final, I saw the preliminary (raced for lane placement), which had a similar result. Stanford easily controlled the race, with open water by the 1000. Stanford looked impressive - their catches were clean, crisp, and together, length looked good, and the bodies were together. Chapman and Arizona State are new names on the lightweight circuit, and had nice races with each other. Time will tell if these crews will be consistent lightweight racers or if they just put out boats of opportunity, but it would always be nice to see them stick around.

It's unfortunate, and I'm sure Stanford shares this opinion too, that LMU and Cal had to scratch from this event. I think both of these crews are getting faster and could have given Stanford a good race. No matter though, because we'll see all three in a few weeks at Windermere.

Princeton - Bucknell Heavies

2007-04-01T18:39:00.000-04:00

The Bucknell heavyweights showed up to race the Princeton lightweights today, winning by 10 seconds. Reports from the race suggest this was a typical lightweight vs heavyweight race - Princeton shot out at the start, rowing high, to take 3 or 4 seats, during the body Bucknell moved out on Princeton while understroking them by 3 or 4 strokes, Princeton moved back a bit in the sprint with Bucknell recovering the seats with their own rate increase. Apparently Princeton looked a bit more together than last year, while still suffering from an inability to lengthen. Official results note, and spectators confirm, that the headwind was strongest during the 1V race, creating a bit of an advantage for the heavyweights. The 2V fought a seesaw battle but with the heavy 2V staying alongside at a lower rate, the outcome (a Princeton loss by a little more than 2 seconds) was a foregone conclusion. The Princeton light frosh, meanwhile, handily won by 26 seconds.

This was a good first race for Princeton because it was a gimme. The meaning of the result is unclear because they raced a heavyweight boat (which contained 2 members of last year's IRA boat). While I still suspect that by the end of the year the IRA champ should beat the Bucknell boat, at this stage of the season Bucknell was racing for the third time while Princeton heard their first shots fired in anger. Also, with less time together as a crew, power (heavyweights) trumps rate (lightweights). Nonetheless, despite all of the yeah, buts, Princeton is left with a season opening loss, a loss that will add urgency to their training, not complacency. If Princeton is timing its peak properly, this is the kind of first race we might expect from the Tigers. No doubt they'll begin increasing their interval work as they head into the body of their schedule. Next week will tell us more.

We also learned that Bucknell will not race a lightweight boat until IRAs.

Georgetown - Radcliffe

2007-03-31T17:37:00.000-04:00

Now that the results are posted, we see that Georgetown beat Radcliffe by just under 1 second. The Radcliffe release on the race notes that the Black and White were up a length at the 1000 meter mark, but the Hoyas reeled them back in. That should be an ominous sign for future Georgetown opponents - a crew that doesn't panic, doesn't feel it needs to win the race at the start, and now a crew with confidence in itself. As I said, a bow ball or a length, this is an excellent win for Georgetown. Knecht Cup will be a great race!

As we look through the other races, we first notice that the Radcliffe 2V beat Georgetown's 2v by a bit more than 23 seconds. Clearly Radcliffe has some athletes able to challenge for the 1V, and I'm certain the Black and White will spend the next couple of weeks trying to figure out if they have the right combination. For Georgetown, the race was close enough that they realize they can't rest on their laurels (not that they would anyway) and will be doing the very same thing.

Radcliffe also won the 4 and the F8. This was the first test for the Radcliffe freshmen who dominated in the fall, and they passed by 14 seconds.

Georgetown is for real, and they're not going away. At this point in the season, we can say something that I don't know has ever been said about women's lightweights - we have a four way dog fight for best in the nation, and all the dogs have yet to show their fangs.

Reader Comment - Georgetown beats Radcliffe

2007-03-31T12:32:00.000-04:00

A reader just posted a comment saying that Georgetown has beaten Radcliffe this morning. I don't know by how much, but even if it's a bow ball, the Hoyas have just made a statement. It's going to be a hot spring! More when we see the full results.

Lightweight Roundup

2007-03-31T11:37:00.000-04:00

A reader beat me to the Princeton preview (thanks for the link) and noted that it was a bit "uninformative." Agreed, although for someone not familiar with what happened last season and in the fall, it set the stage. Most interesting to me was Coach Rassam's tone, which I would characterize as cautious optimism. It's probably just about the right tone to take, implying confidence in his crews but praising those new to the top of the league and noting the growing strength of the category.

We have some newly posted results from Ohio State's dual with Purdue last weekend in which the lights raced Purdue's heavyweight JV, getting knocked about a bit and finishing 27 seconds back. I'm not all that sure what this tells us because it's early in the season and Purdue can put out some strong crews. I wish they'd crank up their lightweight machine which won Dad Vails a few years ago.

Dayton has a preview of their Cincinnati race.

Wisconsin heads south for spring break, which is about two weeks later this year. Sounds like there was some cause for concern because of the long unbroken indoor training period (ugh!) but the coaches feel everyone came through it OK. We'll have to see if it causes the Badgers to get going a little later than most years.

A UCF release notes that the crews are heading into the difficult part of their schedule.

Although a juniors story, the Washington Post has an item of interest as it notes that "the National Capital Area Scholastic Rowing Association is using a "lightweight management" program, designed to ensure that lightweight rowers (boys under 150 pounds, girls under 130) make their weight in a healthy fashion. Rowers must be certified by a trainer, and U.S. Rowing is looking at the process with an eye toward using it in other parts of the country . . ."

A January 2007 study is out that suggests "although carbohydrate and sodium intake may be important in the recovery period between weigh-in and 2000-m rowing ergometer performance, fluid intake has a greater influence on performance among lightweight male rowers who undertake short-term weight loss to achieve specified body-mass limits." This study was done on men and I can't get to the whole thing, but you can see the abstract here.

Finally, here's news about a device we needed during the winter. For those of you with erg related back problems - a boat powered by an elliptical machine!

Duals this weekend

2007-03-29T18:03:00.000-04:00

Two more Sprints schools swing into action this weekend as Radcliffe travels to Georgetown and Princeton welcomes Bucknell.

On Saturday Radcliffe and Georgetown battle over the Class of 2004 Cup. And I do mean battle. Radcliffe is looking for revenge and Georgetown is ready to prove that 2006 was no fluke. The Harvard Crimson article I linked to previously plays right into these themes:

The Radliffe lightweights will look to avenge this late-season turn-for-the-worse in the coming weekend against those very Hoyas.

Next Saturday, the Black and White will travel to Georgetown for the first meet of its young season, and, more importantly, for its first chance at redemption.

Having failed to win an IRA national championship over the past ten years, defeats such as the ones incurred at the hands of the Hoyas and Wisconsin last year are striking setbacks.

But these challenges motivate the squad, and, with the spring season about to begin, the team is ready.

The fact is, Radcliffe is strong this year, and could very well dominate the entire league, not just Georgetown.

Then again, shall we just stop taking the Hoyas for granted right now? This was the second place team in the nation - a position earned, not given. Last year was a breakthrough season and this race will be the first opportunity for Georgetown to state, once and for all, that it was only the beginning. Second was great, once. Now it's on to the championship, and the trip begins Saturday.

On Sunday, Princeton takes on Bucknell. We don't know if it will be a lightweight or a heavyweight Bucknell boat. Rumors still persist that the Bison will only race heavyweights until the IRAs, but the last Bucknell press release stated that the "lightweights" will be racing at Princeton. I've asked Bucknell for some clarification, but I haven't yet received a response.

For the Tigers, however, it doesn't really matter if it's the heavyweights or the lightweights, because a crew that hopes to win IRAs must beat either boat. While there is almost no way to actually compare speed, I think you can make a pretty good case for saying that the lightweight IRA champion is faster than the Dad Vail heavyweight champion. Bucknell heavies were in the petites the last two years, but even if you assume they win Dad Vail this year (although it's not on their schedule), Princeton must be faster if they want to be on track for an IRA championship. This will be a nice race for Princeton and given that it's early in the season (when brute force often dominates skill), this could be a bit of a see-saw battle.

As for Bucknell's plans for the rest of the season, we'll know a little bit more when we see who races at Princeton. [Update: See comment for an interesting take on this.]

Crew Classic, NCRC, and Other Races This Weekend

2007-03-28T19:22:00.000-04:00

The San Diego Crew Classic is this weekend, a regatta which has the potential to be a lightweight showcase on the West Coast, but has seen some dropping entries (the entire regatta has experienced a bit of trouble in this regard). Heck, the event even has a named cup for a trophy - the A.W. Coggeshall Cup. Last year, however, only two eights raced - Stanford and Wisconsin. (It's hard to think of the Crew Classic without thinking of the Wisconsin pep band wading into Mission Bay to play "On Wisconsin" for the lightweights.) This year showed signs of improvement though, as five boats were entered - Cal, LMU, Stanford, Chapman, and Arizona State. Unfortunately, LMU and Cal scratched and we're down to three boats. Still an exciting race for those three, but it would be nice to see a bigger field. Maybe we could get the Dad Vail committee talking to the Crew Classic committee and together they could create some incentive for crews to come to these events. Two excellent events suffering from low entries (makes you think it might be important for lightweight crews to race lightweight events). The West Coast is producing more consistent lightweight boats, however, and I'm hopeful that this event quickly returns to at least its 2005 level when 9 boats entered.

I was concerned that the Cal and LMU scratches had ominous undertones for the rest of the season, but both coaches have told me that their eights will continue to race this spring. Cal suffered a sudden rash of injuries, nearly all non-rowing related (don't these women have restricted activities in their contracts?), but they'll be back and ready to go at Windermere. LMU experienced some recent sickness as well as logistical problems with the race (including some lights holding seats in heavy boats). They too will be back for Windermere.

Now, for the race at hand. While not a known quantity at the start of the year, we know that Stanford will put out a good eight. They've already had some good races this year, just barely missing out on second in the heavy race at Sacramento State. The Cardinal will come to town as the favorite, and ready to race. Chapman hasn't raced an eight yet this season (that I'm aware of), so this race will show us what they have. The same goes for Arizona State. I love to see new lightweight crews racing and ASU, which just got into WIRA, seems to be on the upswing. We'll see if they can hang with Stanford.

The NCRC Invitational is this weekend in Vancouver, Washington. I haven't been able to locate a schedule, but I would expect at least Pacific Lutheran and Puget Sound to race.

The University Rowing Association Championships take place on Sunday outside of Pittsburgh. Wash U. and Carnegie Mellon will face off in light fours (~~no Pittsburgh?~~ Invitations are restricted - see comments).

Dayton faces off against Cincinnati, Indiana, and Eastern Michigan, while rival Ohio State takes on Michigan State (a club team?). I'm not sure if there will be any lightweight races at these regattas. I think this will be Ohio State's first race of the spring.

Race Tomorrow and More Press

2007-03-27T19:42:00.000-04:00

In a rare mid-week dual, Stanford will be racing Santa Clara tomorrow in Los Gatos. This is a bit of a re-match as the Cardinal and the Broncos met up a few weeks ago at the Sacramento Invitational. Racing in the heavy eight event, Stanford finished just 9 seconds ahead of Santa Clara, while in the light four, Stanford was nearly 35 seconds ahead of the Santa Clara crew. This should be a good race as SC will certainly be looking for revenge.

Lehigh's gold medal winning lightweights took the headline of the Mountain Hawks' Murphy Cup press release. Also making Murphy Cup headlines were Villanova's lights for the light four's performance. It's nice to see the Wildcat lightweights back in the news.

Duquesne's press release notes the lightweights' fine performance against Dayton, listing the four's victory as well as the eight's win in the second of two races. Speaking of Dayton, the student newspaper has a nice season preview, which notes the Flyers' nice finishes last year.

Radcliffe Press Release

2007-03-26T20:35:00.000-04:00

Harvard athletics published a nice press release on the Radcliffe lights. Some highlights:

- Five returning seniors
- Three rowers participated in a U23 camp last summer
- Freshmen dominated in the fall (did we mention that here once or twice?)

The most significant fact for me is the participation of three athletes in the U23 sculling camp. I know the sweep rower ethos, because at one point I drank the Kool-Aid along with everyone else - scullers are pansies, they're loners, they think technique is important, their catches are too soft, they're too in control. Uh-huh. Keep thinking those thoughts as as you suck down their wake. Those of you who are only sweep rowers don't believe me now, but to learn to scull well is to learn to move a boat. While sweep "hammers" wrench in oars, throw their bodies around the boat, and burst veins in their necks, scullers impassively turn pain into poetry while defying observers to know the difference between the paddle and full pressure by anything other than boat speed. Why? Because they know that any errant movement will upset the balance of a boat, that any wasted energy will come back to haunt you when you are the only engine. Don't get me wrong, I like to jump into the engine room of an eight and whale on the oar as much as the next person, but if you can scull, you can make any boat go fast. If you look back at my summer nationals post, you'll see the names of those Radcliffe rowers mentioned. (UCF had two rowers sculling at Nationals while Princeton and Bucknell each had one. And don't forget Bucknell's fall sculling program.) I'll get down off of my soapbox now, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Speaking of warning, I said before that when Radcliffe meets Princeton on April 28th it will be a 1 vs. 2 race. This will be Princeton's first race with any of last year's top three crews, while Radcliffe will have won Knecht (not a particularly bold call, assuming Wisco has their usual slow start). This may very well be Princeton's first wake up call of the year and the rest of their season will depend on how well they handle it.

More Results...

2007-03-25T21:12:00.000-04:00

What a day in Tacoma Washington! The Daffodil Cup went off Saturday in the face of tremendous wind and rain, although the last five events had to be canceled as a result of the horrendous conditions. How horrendous? Well, when it takes fours over ten minutes to run the course, you know you have a bit of a head wind. A head wind like that, unfortunately, will just about kill the chances of any lightweight crew racing heavyweights, which is what several lightweight boats did.

I haven't yet seen the official results, but a reader was kind enough to post them in a comment, and noted that "B" boats were lightweight boats. Pacific Lutheran raced a light eight in the 2V event, finishing second behind Puget Sound but ahead of Lewis and Clark. PLU raced a light four in the heavy four event, and saw the head wind push them to the back of the field, 75 seconds off of their own winning heavy four. A Puget Sound B boat (lightweight) raced in the heavyweight novice eight, finishing third out of three. A PLU B boat raced in the heavyweight 2V four event, finishing behind Puget sound and Lewis and Clark heavies, but ahead of a Portland heavyweight boat.

All in all it had to have been an incredibly difficult day, even more so for lightweights trying to cut through a headwind. I guess the only thing to do on days like that is to think of Nietszche.

In Oklahoma, Tulsa and Creighton locked horns in lightweight fours with Tulsa coming out on top by 5 seconds. Tulsa has a pretty decent four so Creighton shows some potential in this race.

In Los Angeles, LMU put ~~their light eight~~ out a combination novice/lightweight boat to face USC's 3V8 and novice 8. LMU was third, 53 seconds behind the 3V and 30 seconds behind the novice. ~~USC is a powerful squad, but I think these results reflect an off day (or a different crew) for LMU.~~ [Update: Thanks to a reader for clearing up the LMU boating.]

In the Berg Cup at Newport Beach, Long Beach State raced a light eight in the 2V race, winning the event over heavies from USD, UCSD, and Chapman. Long Beach State was 12 seconds ahead of second place USD.

More Saturday Results

2007-03-25T13:39:00.000-04:00

Dayton and Duquesne raced light eights and light fours at their dual in Dayton. The Flyers won the eight by 24 seconds, a strong showing for Dayton. A second lineup was raced, which was won by Duquesne. I don't know if this was a 2V or just switched seats. It would be great if these two programs had enough lightweights for a second eight, but I suspect it was a combination of switched seats and new rowers. Duquesne won the light four by 16 seconds.

At the Blue Heron Sprints in Eureka, Humboldt State's light four won a combo light/JV race over Humboldt's JV, Seattle Pacific, and Mills. It's not clear if the latter two boats were lightweight or heavyweight.

At the Petrakis Cup in Florida, UCF came in first and second in the light four, beating a Jacksonville boat. In the heavy eight event, the lights were third, behind their own heavies and Miami's heavies, but beating heavyweights from Jacksonville and Tulane.

In Washington DC the Georgetown freshmen lights raced George Mason, North Carolina, and their own heavies. In two separate races the frosh beat their own heavies and George Mason's heavies, while losing to North Carolina's 2F heavies in a separate race. Somewhat convoluted story here.

No news yet on the Daffodil Cup in Tacoma.

Pitt Odds and Ends

2007-03-24T20:58:00.000-04:00

You'll remember that the HOCR fours post generated some comments about erg scores and resulted in an extended ergers vs rowers discussion. The point, of course, was that good ergers aren't necessarily good rowers. Well, since the fall, it appears that those four rowers put in the work necessary to drop their scores. The one athlete left with an erg score above 8:00, weighs about 100 pounds so she can afford to give up some time. Apparently that rower just avoided the lightweight nightmare, when a coach says, "You're going to be a coxswain." (And you want to say, "I'm a rower, nitwit.") Just a guess, but I think there's a coach in western PA that's pretty glad he's down one coxswain. This is always a great story because FITD readers know that I love to see boat movers make a mockery of low erg scores (Hmm, think that has anything to do with my own erging ability?).

Murphy Cup

2007-03-24T19:29:00.000-04:00

Today was gray and cool in Philadelphia as crews boated out for the light four and eight events at the Murphy Cup. First up, at 3pm, was the six boat light four race. Pittsburgh, the favorite in this race, came in with big momentum and equally big expectations. The rest of the field, if they paid attention at all, knew they would be sorely tested. In-town rival, Carnegie Mellon, knew that simply to win local supremacy, they would have to be one of the best light fours in the nation. For the rest of the field, in a quick 7 to 7 and a half minutes (doesn't feel quick, does it?) they'd know where they stood.

Although I didn't actually see any, it was a difficult day for starts, as they were floating and there was a decent current. At least that's what a few complaining coaches said. However the start of the fours would go, it wasn't going to be a big factor in this race. By the time the crews neared the wire at the 700 meter mark, Pitt was clearly in control. They weren't pressed in the latter part of the race and barely put on a sprint, finishing with 5 or 6 lengths open on the rest of the field. Expectations fulfilled. CMU proved it's mettle finishing 14 seconds back in second. One had to wonder if in another year that row would've won it. A good race, but work ahead if they want to catch the Panthers. Placing third, 23 seconds back, was Susquehanna. An unknown quantity before this race, it will now be on a few radar screens. In fourth was Lafayette, 31 seconds back. This is a crew with several novices and although it seems like forever right now, a 30 second gap from a fast crew like Pitt shows some potential. Rounding out the field were Villanova and Sacred Heart, 36 and 43 seconds back respectively.

As one might expect at an early season race, the field was pretty dispersed as crews had varying amounts of water time and boat time. Quite honestly, the scariest thing about this race, was the fact that the Pitt boat was a bit rusty. One thing we know about this boat is that the crew knows how to row, so as they smooth out and get back that HOCR swing, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the lightweight nation. I pray the Pitt boat goes to Knecht healthy and ready to rock and roll, because that looks like their only chance to race the Sprints crews. That race will be critical to understanding how they stand in relation to those schools. Too bad it's not closer to the end of the season. Wonder if the crews could get together and set up a fours challenge race just before IRAs?

With a Bucknell scratch in the light eight (more on that later), Lehigh became the favorite. (I wonder if the Mountain Hawks learned of the scratch at the line, or prior to boating out.) As the boats neared the 750 meter mark, it looked like Lehigh may have had a length on the field, which seemed quite tight at that point. Lehigh kept that length, maybe opening it up a seat, until the finish, as Penn State came on for second. The field was spread evenly with about a length between each position, Temple and Philadelphia taking third and fourth. This was a nice race for Lehigh, as they were able to stay in control ahead of a field battling hard behind them. It was also an impressive showing for Penn State, a crew we missed last spring but who has shown flashes of potential in the past. The Temple boat, it turns out, is half novices, but I think they were close enough to Lehigh to feel good about the speed they can pick up as the season continues. Even in finishing at the back of the field, Philadelphia had a decent row, only a little over 11 seconds off the winning time. This is a very young program and they'll get faster as the season goes on. At the finish, it sounded as if some of the Philadelphia rowers were giving birth, but they'll tighten up as they get more race experience. There was some initial confusion about the results as Bucknell was listed as winning with a Penn State scratch. Turns out some of the boats went down the course with the wrong bow numbers.

The Princeton Freshmen lights made their annual pilgrimage to Philadelphia and raced in the heavyweight freshmen event. Although they weren't able to pull out the win (as they did last year), they finished a strong second, about a length and a half back from the winner Navy, and a length and a half ahead of the rest of the field.

The Bucknell scratch was not surprising as I've now heard from more than one source that they do not intend to row a lightweight eight during the season, but will weigh in rowers on schedule to qualify for IRAs. I'll have a separate post on this, one that I hope will generate some discussion. Despite some strong feelings I have about this practice, I'm not certain they're correct and I'd like to hear what you think. More on this later. First, of course, we need to remove Bucknell from the rankings, which gets Lehigh onto the list.

A Flurry of Press Releases

2007-03-23T21:53:00.000-04:00

A flurry of press releases hit the wire over the last few days. Dayton had a great spring preview which highlighted the lightweight eight while also bringing the heavyweights into focus. The story confirms that the Flyers will race Duquesne in both the light four and the light eight. Dayton has one of the best lightweight resumes around, as they are two time winners of both the Dad Vail and the A10 lightweight titles.

The UCF release about the Petrakis Cup notes that the light eight will race in the heavy eight event while a light four event will be held. Jacksonville will have one of the light fours racing.

Georgetown is racing George Mason, George Washington, and North Carolina on the Potomac River, although it looks like only the lightweight freshmen will be participating.

The Harvard Crimson gets a week's jump on Radcliffe's opener with Georgetown by making the race out to be a real blood feud. More on that race next week.

More Races This Weekend

2007-03-22T19:21:00.000-04:00

In addition to the Murphy Cup, there are several other races with lightweight events. On Saturday UCF hosts the Petrakis Cup with Jacksonville, Miami, and Tulane coming to town. Most of these races (all?) will be heavyweight races, but I'm sure the lights will race at home. [Update: see comments for clarification.] Dayton races Duquesne, which may involve a lightweight race. In Tacoma the Daffodil Cup will be contested, with PLU in the mix, while Seattle Pacific heads to the Blue Heron Regatta in Eureka where they'll race Humboldt State and Mills in light fours.

On Sunday, Ohio State stops off in Indianapolis on its return trip from spring break training to race Purdue, Texas, and Michigan State or Grand Valley. Also in the (more) middle of the country, Tulsa takes on Creighton in the light four. It's a big day for Tulsa, as they christen a new boat and dedicate a new boathouse, the J. Bird Sr. Shell Nest. Is that a great name or what!? Check out this sweet description of where Tulsa rows:

The Verdigris River sports a natural setting of 18 miles distance for the TU women's rowing team to practice, and the levees on either side provide calm waters even when the winds gust up to 25 mph.

Is there such a thing as too nice to row?

Murphy Cup

2007-03-21T21:00:00.000-04:00

Last year's Murphy Cup had a nice six boat light four field, but only St. Joe's and Miami of Ohio raced the light eight, in a race won by over a minute by St. Joe's. It's a bit different this year as a six boat light four field returns, along with a five boat light eight field. In fact, the lightweight women's field is much larger than the light men, who only have three light eights entered.

The lightweight four event is comprised of Villanova, Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, Lafayette, Sacred Heart, and Susquehanna. This will be our first chance to see the fall's top four, Pittsburgh, which has to be the clear favorite at this point. CMU ~~has shown the ability to stay close to~~ [beat] Pitt ~~in the past~~ [here two years ago], so we'll see where they stand this year. Lafayette has been paying some attention to lightweights recently and, although this is a bit early in the season for a young boat, will be anxious to show what they can do. Villanova likes to race lightweights a few times during the season, see if they can make any noise, and then melt back into the heavies. When they do make noise, it's always in these early races. Susquehanna has been racing a light four for at least a year now, so they'll be looking for some improvement over last year. Sacred Heart is a bit of an unknown at this point.

In the eight we have Philadelphia, Temple, Penn State, Lehigh, and Bucknell. Bucknell has to be the obvious favorite in this field. It's interesting to see Bucknell in this race for several reasons. First, it's a departure from their usual practice of racing the lightweights as the 2V. Second, some of last year's lightweights have been sucked into the heavyweight boat, so this is not likely to be the fastest boat the Bison can put out. Finally, rumor has had it that Bucknell will not be racing lightweights this year. Clearly they're racing here, so I'll wait for the results before I engage in wild speculation about what they might be up to. Next we'll be looking at Lehigh. Lehigh has been gaining speed the last couple of years and this will be an excellent first test for the boat. It's fortunate for both Bucknell and Lehigh that they'll be side by side in the race. It's good to see Penn State back in the lightweight ranks. The Nittany Lions had a good fall a couple of years ago, but never carried it over into the spring. Philadelphia is a new program and is an unknown, just as Temple is. (See my last post for a bit more on Temple.)

Finally, the Princeton lightweight freshmen usually show up at this race and they're scheduled to be here again, racing in the second heat of the heavyweight novice eight event.

The Murphy Cup is a good lightweight regatta this year and really gets the season off to a great start. In this race alone we have three light eights that we didn't see last year. I'm hoping for good, tight races so that everyone stays on the right side of the Line of Hope.

Spring Regatta Results

2007-03-20T21:25:00.000-04:00

The Pete Archer Spring Regatta in Long Beach results are out and LMU had a good day. The Lions won the light eight by 3 seconds over Cal State Long Beach and by 28 seconds over UCSD. LMU followed up the 2k win with a 1k win over CSULB by 1 second.

The LMU boat contained a rower who won the national championship in the intermediate light quad and silver in both the intermediate and senior light double at nationals last summer. It looks like LMU can put out a pretty good light eight this year and with a few weeks until Windermere, they should be able to give Stanford and the Easties a good run.

Lightweights in Philadelphia

2007-03-20T21:03:00.000-04:00

A reader wrote to note a new high school lightweight policy for the Pennsylvania Scholastic Rowing Association. A "Lightweight Certification Letter" is required of all lightweight rowers. The reader notes that this looks like a good policy, but some schools will probably choose not to race in some lightweight events to avoid the hassle, and goes on to say that "How to thread the needle and have safe weight policies that encourage natural lightweight seating in boats, while at the same time not creating an unreasonable liability hurdle for schools that will result in further dropping of lightweight participation, will be the task."

It's tempting to believe that those who can't be bothered probably also can't be bothered worrying about natural lightweights and safe weight management. That's likely to be wrong, however, and this is probably a case where rowers should take it upon themselves to remind coaches that they want to compete in lightweight events and are willing to bird-dog the letter through its hoops.

Also from Philadelphia, is a story about Temple's upcoming Murphy Cup races. It mentions Temple's light four race at the Keuper Cup in Florida. Temple also has a light eight entered at Murphy (more on that tomorrow). I think this is big news if Temple is getting serious about lightweight rowing, even if it's only for this year. It's a disgrace that there are no lightweight programs in the Philadelphia area, a hotbed of rowing. Some of the smaller Dad Vail schools could have a real impact if they focused on lightweights, instead of providing cannon fodder for the big heavyweight programs. In the Sprints League, Penn should clearly have lightweight women. Their heavyweight women have been mediocre and they have the example of the light men who had a surprisingly good season a few years ago. When the light men medaled at IRAs it was a surprise to even find the Penn name in a grand final.

Temple is a program that could focus on lightweights and almost immediately do damage on the national scene. They want to play with the big girls and that would get them there. We'll see what kind of success they have and where it takes them.

Last Weekend's Races, and the NCRC

2007-03-19T20:45:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was a difficult weekend for racing in the Philadelphia area as a snow and ice storm canceled Lehigh's races in the city as well as the Jesuit Invitational in Camden.

There's always racing in Florida though, and UCF went up against heavyweights from Nova Southeastern, Jacksonville, Rollins, and Georgia in the eight and the four. The Golden Knights finished behind Nova and Jacksonville, but ahead of Rollins and UGA in both races. In the eight, UCF was 12 seconds off of Nova and 5 seconds off of Jacksonville, while the margins narrowed a bit in the four. UCF was closer to Nova last week.

On the West Coast Seattle Pacific and Pacific Lutheran battled it out in Seattle. The V8 race (which a reader tells me was between the schools' lightweight boats) was a barnburner, with SPU winning by less than a second over PLU. The PLU light four raced in the JV four event, finishing 17 seconds behind their own heavy four, but 10 seconds ahead of the SPU heavy four.

A reader posted a comment to my last post noting that the Northwest College Rowing Conference includes lightweight eight and four races. I've added those races to the calendar. A look at PLU's schedule shows the IRA regatta listed so it looks like they're serious about lightweights. (It's not listed on SPU's schedule.) PLU has been a frequent lightweight competitor but you never know if they'll be racing from year to year. Imprecise results reporting doesn't help either. Now that I know, I'll keep an eye out for lightweight racing in the NCRC.

Fight in the Dog's 2007 Pre-Season Ranking

2007-03-18T14:06:00.000-04:00

It's time again for my most foolhardy post of the year - the pre-season rankings. I was tempted to just go with the Readers' Poll this year, but I thought that would be taking the easy way out. I'm not that much different than the poll, and many places are really a toss-up, but here goes:

Princeton
Wisconsin
Radcliffe
Georgetown
MIT
UCF
Stanford
Bucknell
Dayton
Ohio State

Princeton as number one seems an easy choice and on paper it is. The Tigers won the HOCR and dominated the Princeton Chase. They have every rower back [although losing the coxswain,] from last year's IRA boat. When the seniors were freshmen they dominated Sprints and the Knecht Cup. When the juniors were freshmen, they too dominated, winning Sprints by 9 seconds and winning the heavyweight freshmen eight at Knecht (there was no freshmen light eight). Know what the sophomores did as freshmen? Yup, dominated. Despite the possibility that winning the Head of the Charles is lightweight rowing's version of the Sports Illustrated cover jinx, Princeton has to be the heavy favorite heading into this season. Even more impressive to me was the fact that Princeton's 2V was second at the Chase, suggesting that there will be serious competition throughout the season for 1V seats, keeping the boat fast and on its toes.

Where can Princeton go wrong? The most obvious concern is injuries. Just as important as 1V injuries, however, are 2V injuries because Princeton's most powerful asset may be its depth. The other area where Princeton can run into trouble is technical execution. Both results and observation show that the Tigers only occasionally hit on all cylinders in 2006. Highly variable results suggest that the problem is more likely to be technique than power. If Princeton rows well, rows together, avoids gymnasts, and consistently competes for seats, they will be champions at the end of the year.

Wisconsin lost 5 ~~athletes~~ [rowers and the coxswain] from last year's IRA boat and one might be tempted to think they are in a rebuilding mode. They are getting used to a new coach and possibly a new style, both of which can cause a little short-term upset. One might not expect the Badgers to be as dominant as in past years. HOCR showed that would be a mistake. Wisconsin has dominated lightweight women's rowing for so long that it's hard to imagine the Badgers having a down year. Their HOCR finish and the respect engendered by their dominance of the last three years puts Wisconsin at 2.

Radcliffe is a program that seems to clearly be on the upswing and could easily finish in any of the top three positions (as was the case last year). With only two losses from an extremely fast boat last season, the Black and White will be in the hunt all year. With this ranking simply providing a place to start the season, I'd be shocked if Radcliffe never moved higher than third. Given Wisconsin's propensity for a slow start, I expect the April 28th Radcliffe-Princeton race to be a critical test for both crews and, just as it was last year, likely a 1 vs 2 matchup.

Georgetown, on the heels of a great season last year, gets slotted in at fourth. They obviously have the potential to do better than that, but they also have their work cut out for them to do it. As the second place team in the nation last season, they get the benefit of the doubt over MIT, with whom they traded finishing positions at HOCR and the Chase. MIT comes in at fifth, after winning the petites at IRAs last year and an excellent HOCR finish. With a strong tradition and good local competition, the league has been waiting for MIT to raise some Cain, and this year may be the start.

Placing sixth, a spot lower than last year's finish, is UCF. This placing doesn't so much reflect an expectation of less potential as it does concern that some of UCF's depth is being siphoned off to the heavyweights. Although they may all be back for IRAs, there will be some penalty for having to switch into a new team and likely a slightly different style. Stanford's placement at 7th reflects a belief that the Cardinal is also a program on the upswing. The days of believing that Stanford is such an athletic campus that a program of complete walk-ons can win national championships are over. More recruits means a more hard core rowing mind-set, and that means more speed. Stanford has the potential to be the biggest positive surprise of the season.

At 8th, Bucknell suffers from the same concern as UCF - that lightweights are being sucked into the heavyweight program. If all the lightweights are available to row lightweight, they'll be faster than this. If not, they could very well be slower. Dayton and Ohio State round out the top ten. Dayton has shown that they can consistently have a reasonably fast light eight. Now they need to get fast enough to break into the grand at IRAs. Ohio State has a new coach and gets a bump over Lehigh for what that can sometimes do (see Georgetown last year). Cal stays out of the rankings largely because they never race the bulk of the lightweight crews. It would be great to see them at IRAs, but it's a long trip for a club team. Certainly they'll be one of the biggest beneficiaries when the regatta moves West.

Spring Break Races Last Week

2007-03-17T22:33:00.000-04:00

Buffalo scrimmaged Dayton and Tulsa in Oak Ridge, TN last week, taking two (eights) from Dayton and splitting two (fours) with Tulsa. Buffalo beat Dayton by 8 and 11 seconds over 1,500 meters. The Tulsa four, which had a pretty good HOCR, beat Buffalo by 4 seconds in the first race while trailing by 8 seconds in the second race. Buffalo had some success in lightweight races last year, and it's good to see them back in the fold this year.