2007 Dad Vail - Fours

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.]

2007 Dad Vail Preview

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.

The UMass Light Eight

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.

No Lightweights at ECACs

ECAC sources have informed me that there will be no lightweight events at this year's ECAC Regatta. The ECAC has had trouble filling a lightweight field and is understandably hesitant about running match races. It's great to have this information early in the season so lightweight crews can make appropriate plans. Dad Vail has an established lightweight tradition and would be a great venue to bring together all of the Dad Vail and ECAC lightweight boats. The championship becomes more meaningful and the regatta could become an exciting and important stop on the road to IRAs. Should the IRA Regatta find itself in the position of having to turn away entrants, a Dad Vail championship may one day become a price of admission.

Now it's on you, coaches, get Dad Vail on your schedule and let us anticipate great eights racing to go along with the already excellent fours event.

Tragic Dad Vail Chapter Closed

This past week a tragic chapter in the history of the Dad Vail regatta was closed with the publication on row2k of the Scott Laio Medical Assessment. Among other things, the Assessment says that "there was absolutely NO reason for Scott not to participate in competitive rowing given the data from the autopsy, the results of the EKG performed on Scott 4 years earlier, and the results from a cardiology exam (electrocardiogram, stress test and echocardiogram) performed as a reference last June on Scott's 17 year old brother, Michael who is also a competitive rower. Scott was a model picture of good health and physical condition." Of particular note to the lightweight world was the finding that "one could presume adequate hydration." So, despite constant media insinuations to the contrary, Scott Laio did not abuse his health to row as a lightweight.

Unfortunately, the insinuations continue. On May 11, the day this assessment was published on row2k, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a story about the elimination of race-day weigh-ins. In that story is a paragraph that states, "In late June, the Philadelphia medical examiner issued a report that determined Laio died from a fluid and electrolyte imbalance and heat stress, conditions that can be related to dehydration, according to some physicians." The following day, on May 12th, the Inquirer published another Dad Vail story which stated, "The Philadelphia medical examiner determined that Laio died from a fluid and electrolyte imbalance and heat stress, which could have been related to dehydration." The Assessment stated, "Blood tests showed electrolyte levels of potassium and sodium consistent with expected levels for an athlete at the end of a competitive race."

When it comes to lightweight rowing erroneous assumptions like these are made all the time, in everything from newspaper articles to research papers. Assumptions like these are at the root of the NCAA's desire to kill lightweight rowing. And assumptions like these are wrong. Why is it that when a non-athlete watches what she eats she's "taking care of her body," but when a lightweight rower watches what she eats it's "disordered eating?" Lightweight women really aren't the psychological wrecks the politically correct world makes them out to be, they're just exceptional athletes who aren't... "big."

Dad Vail - Dayton and Nova Southeastern Win Championships

As expected, the light four final at Dad Vail was a tight finish, with the top three boats within 3 seconds and change of each other. Nova Southeastern continued its tear, winning by 1 second over Pitt, with Virginia Tech another 2 seconds back. Lawrence, Georgia, and Buffalo rounded out the grand final field. As this race approached the 500 meter mark it was impossible to tell if any of the top three boats held an advantage. All the separation seemed to come as they moved through the island with Nova opening a bit on Pitt and Pitt opening a bit more on VT. At the top of the island it seemed clear that Nova had given this race everything they had to give and were desperately looking for the finish line. Pitt was poised to reel them in, but was running out of water. The crowd, anticipating a Pitt sprint, waited for the Panthers' rate to come up, but it never quite did. Pitt closed, but not enough, and Nova hung on for the victory. Virginia Tech, rolling down lane one was making their own stealth attack, but didn't have enough left to make any real headway. This was a hard fought race and the fact that the top three finishers all but had their tongues dragging in the water as they crossed the finish line made it all the more obvious. Of course, it's not quite fair to characterize Nova as "hanging on" because they took this race to the rest of the field and won it. When the field was tight, they cranked it up and moved away from the pack, making everyone else try to catch them. Lawrence, Georgia, and Buffalo all finished respectably and, although out of the medals, could take solace in the fact that they were 4th, 5th, and 6th out of 20 boats entered.


As I mentioned in my last post, I really hadn't seen results for Nova SE before so they were a surprise to me. A reader noted that they raced a UCF four early in the year and although they lost, they were fast even then. If we look at the final last year and this year, only Pitt was in both. That kind of turnover makes for exciting regattas.

Speaking of Pitt, the last time I wrote about them I was wondering what happened to them at Knecht. A silver at Vails is what I call a nice recovery. No doubt they were at least momentarily unhappy with second, but if they think about it they'll recognize a nice achievement.

In between thunderstorm delays the V8 race went off with Dayton, Lehigh, and Villanova in the field. The final times show a 5 second difference between 1st and 2nd, but it looked like Dayton was in cruise control as they came over the line. Again, Villanova and Lehigh had respectable races, but it looked like Dayton had more to give. I think this was a case of a program who has put some focus on lightweights racing against boats of opportunity. A great race here would've been Dayton and Bucknell, but Bucknell has other priorities (more on that later).

The Dad Vail was marred by rain delays today, which resulted in the regatta committee forgoing the traditional awarding of medals at the medal dock after the race in favor of a simple handover to a team representative. This was a shame and was unnecessary. The sun shone brightly as the regatta officials checked their lightning detectors (I kid you not), determined that there was still danger, and continued to delay the races. Even with the delay, however, it's hard to see why medals couldn't have been awarded to crews at the dock. Nonetheless, the races otherwise were well run and the weather was surprisingly good. And best of all, they actually held lightweight races.

Dad Vail Heats

You can find the results of the Dad Vail light four heats here, so I won't go over them.

Who is Lawrence and where did they come from? It's only a heat, and fourth was comfortably back from third, but still, they're a surprise to me.

Why does the announcer keep calling UMass, Amherst? Doesn't he realize that Amherst is a different school?

Where did Nova Southeastern come from? I don't remember seeing them race a four, but they had the fastest time of the day.

Pittsburgh looks to be getting back on track.

It happens to someone every year, and this year it was Northwestern. Their heat time would have won every heat but the one they were in. Instead they got fourth and miss out on the semis. It's tough to compare heat times because the dynamics of a heat are so much different than a race, but they may be the third or fourth fastest boat at Vails, but we'll never know because they got rooked in the draw. In fairness to the regatta committee, I'm not sure anyone would've thought before the race that heat 3 would be so much faster than the rest, but that's no comfort to Northwestern.

Dad Vail

The Dad Vail Regatta kicks off on Friday with four heats of lightweight fours for a total of twenty boats. Three from each heat of five go to semi-finals so these crews should get in a lot of racing. Looking over the field, we haven't seen results for each of these boats, but I would guess that we have for the faster ones. Then again, where did Penn State come from last week?

The favorites out of the first heat would have to be Penn State and Carnegie Mellon. CMU is a mystery all of a sudden, but I can't imagine they will be 18 seconds behind Penn State this weekend. The second heat contains UConn, which has shown itself capable of beating UMass pretty handily, who is also in the heat. Of the other crews in that heat, Buffalo may show some promise. Buffalo doesn't have an eight entered (wonder why?), so this four may be the fastest from the bigger boat. The third heat has Virginia Tech, the new boat to beat, and Northwestern, last year's winner. The final heat has Pitt, in whom I'm putting some faith to get back on track here, and then a toss-up for second. Perhaps St. Joe's will show some speed in this heat.

This light four event will have some great racing to go with some great storylines. We'll find out if the newly fast, Virginia Tech and Penn State, are for real, if CMU and Pitt can get it together one last time, and if Northwestern can defend their title. Some crews I might like to have seen here are Tampa and Loyola. Tampa had some good races early in the season that might have made them want to test themselves against bigger competition. Loyola also raced earlier in the season and while they took some lumps, they did beat Villanova.

The V8 is a three boat race among Lehigh, Dayton, and Villanova. Lehigh and Villanova are relatively untested in the eight, unlike Dayton, and it's hard to know how fast they'll be. Dayton is having an excellent season and is coming off a win at the A10 championships over URI. I'm disappointed that there are only three boats in this race, most of all for Dayton. The Flyers deserve to defend their championship against a bigger field and the winner of this race should see more boats behind them. It would be great to see Ohio State in this race, but they decided to go to ECACs (which has canceled all lightweight events). Also from last year, UCF is racing in California and UCSB is not racing lightweights. What about URI and Bucknell? Bucknell in particular has been nowhere to be seen. Bucknell is racing heavyweights at Dad Vail but the lights aren't there. I thought they had brought in some lightweight recruits this year but it looks like they may be only a boat of opportunity. In any case, it looks like they're not yet ready to see themselves as a serious lightweight program. This is disappointing because I thought they were making a commitment to lightweights.

While the on-again off-again ECAC debacle hurt the light eight entries, there is a strong field in the fours and we'll see some great racing. In the eights, defending champ Dayton will need to assume the worst racing against relative unknowns, and will do their best not to be surprised. It will be a great two days and will be followed up by Eastern Sprints on Sunday, only fifteen minutes away.

UCF to Skip Dad Vail

In a release announcing its participation in the Windemere Cup Regatta, UCF also announced that its lightweights would skip the Dad Vail Regatta to race in the Pacific Coast Rowing Championships. There is no mention whether the lightweights will race in Seattle. Coach Leeanne Crain previously coached at the University of San Diego and understandably has a soft spot for West Coast rowing.

This is a bittersweet announcement. On the one hand it further depletes an already small lightweight eight field at the Vails. Maybe UCF thinks it's no great loss missing the Vails since it can race the top east coast lightweights at IRAs. On the other hand, last year's Vails was a bad race for UCF and you might think they'd want to regain some respect. The reality, though, is that it might be tough to take the heavyweights to the west coast and not take the lightweights.

On the plus side, this brings some good competition to the west coast. Lightweight rowing can be a bit sparse there, so UCF's appearance is a boost for the regatta. UCF almost beat Stanford at last year's IRAs so the PCRC race should be a good one.

Dad Vail Fours vs. Eights

A reader posted a comment to a post on dedicated lightweight programs suggesting that the real race at Dad Vails is lightweight fours because that event has more competitors than lightweight eights. This comment was followed by another taking issue with that statement, saying that the light eight winner was closer in speed to the open 8 winner than was the light 4 winner to the open 4 winner.

Both are correct in their facts. There were 18 light four entries vs. just 5 in the light 8, but the light 4 was 3.3% slower than the heavy 4 while the light 8 was only 2.5% slower than the heavy 8. To try to understand what this means, we need to look for some context. We can get that by looking at other races. At Eastern Sprints the light 8 was 5.1% slower and the light 4 was 2.3% slower - the opposite of Vails! IRAs don't work because the heavies row in a different regatta and no fours are raced at IRAs. (Rowing in a different regatta means that times are not at all comparable, but what the heck, I'll do it anyway. The light 8 turns out to be 5.0% slower - a result I attribute to pure coincidence.) I've used 2005 results here, as opposed to going back and doing some sort of averaging over the years.

We've just succeeded in muddying the waters so now let's look at world records. I know they were all set at different times and on different courses, but as world records we can use them as measures because to set a world record the boats will have met up with generally the same conditions. No light eights or light fours race internationally so we'll use doubles and quads as proxies. Here we find that light quads are 5.1% slower and light doubles are 2.8% slower, the same pattern as Sprints. The men, by the way, also follow that pattern at Vails and in the world records (no fours at Sprints).

So, this suggests that the fact that at Vails the light eights are closer to the heavies than the light fours are is an aberration. I'm not sure why this is but I'll guess that it's because the heavyweights in Dad Vail programs are closer in size to lightweights than in the scholarship and national team programs. I think this supports the point I made earlier that if Dad Vail programs would concentrate on lightweights they can be much more successful on a national (as opposed to the Dad Vail) level. Think about the Truthtellers.

Back to the original question about which event is more competitive at Vails - I don't know. I think we can safely say that despite only having 5 entrants, the light 8 is as competitive as any other event. We don't know, however, if they're closer to the heavies because the heavies are slower or the lights are faster. As for the fours, they do seem to be a bit slower than they should be, but still close enough to be in the ballpark.

The other thing that comes out of this is the fact that the men are generally closer to their heavyweight counterparts than the women (except for the light eight at Vails). This probably is due to longer standing and better developed lightweight programs for the men. The good news for the light women is that they can look forward to improving their speed at a faster rate than the heavies.

Speaking of Dad Vail

USROWING RANKS FLYER LIGHTWEIGHTS 6TH
Dayton's lightweights won the Dad Vail in 2005 and they had to have been the happiest boat on the river that day. I'm not sure if Dayton has ever raced this event before, but it was a great win for that program. The rowers couldn't stop smiling and they looked like they might float all the way back to Ohio. Hopefully this will give lightweight rowing some momentum at Dayton so the school can continue to put out competitive crews. Dayton doesn't talk about lightweights all that much, which makes it seem like they'll boat an eight only if they happen to have eight fast lighweight women. Maybe now they'll make it a bit more of a priority.