Finals: Sunday in Lucerne

Final strokes of the rep!  Photo courtesy row2k.com

After a good solid race in our rep yesterday, we are feeling confident and excited coming into this afternoon's final. Reps aren't always a good way of gauging your speed, because you never know what other countries' race strategies are to qualify for the final, but we had a solid and aggressive piece that we are ready to build off of for today's final.

We are lining between Great Britain, the defending World Champs, and Australia, with Germany (World Cup leaders this year), New Zealand, and Ukraine filling out the rest of the starting blocks. Our race goes off the line at 1:29pm (7:29am Eastern/4:29am Pacific), and there will be live video streaming through the World Rowing website at http://www.worldrowing.com/video. You can also see the splits and results via live race tracker at http://www.worldrowing.com/live-results.

The weather has been interesting here--alternating lovely sunny skies with rain and occasional thunderstorms. There will be variable weather this afternoon, but whether 70, sunny and tailwind or 60, bumpy and pouring, we're excited to get to the line and drive down the race course with everything we've got.

Some USA crews have already raced this morning in the B finals, and we will have crews racing throughout the morning in the A finals, so be sure to tune in to the live streaming video starting at 10:15am to see the racing! Thanks for the support, and GO USA!

Lucerne 2011: Day One Done!

Off the line in our heat!    Photo courtesy row2k.com

We had our first race together today, and while we definitely have places to go, it was a solid starting point. We lined up against Germany (World Cup 1 and 2 winners), Australia (who I raced last weekend at Henley), China, and Russia. We ended up a second and a half off of Germany, and will be racing in the rep tomorrow with a solid field, including Ukraine (World Cup and Worlds medalists from the last few years). We’re racing at 3:12pm (9:12am Eastern, 6:12am Pacific) and you can see live results at http://www.worldrowing.com/live-results.

Kristin Hedstrom and Julie Nichols dominating the LW2x

USA overall did very well for Day 1, with some extremely strong performances to boot. The lightweight women’s double of Julie Nichols and Kristin Hedstrom won both their heat and quarterfinal races, making it look easy in the heat by nearly a length of open). The women’s pair of Taylor Ritzel and Caroline Lind also moved out to open water in winning their heat, and the women’s eight won their heat by a length after a fighting back through the field. Our men’s eight also had a great race today. Our guys went for it against defending World Champions Germany, were within a second of them the entire race, and nearly caught them in the sprint. The other heat of the men’s eight featured a 0.01 second win by the Netherlands over Worlds silver-medalists Great Britain—a big sprint that produced one bowball’s lead and avoided a trip to the reps for the Dutch.

M1x Ken Jurkowski

Another exciting performance of the day was from men’s single Ken Jurkowski, who took second in his heat before winning his quarterfinal (Mahe Drysdale took third) to advance to the A/B semi tomorrow.

The women’s double of Sarah Trowbridge and Kate Bertko finished a tight second in their rep this afternoon after finishing a tight second in their heat this morning, and advanced to the A/B semi tomorrow. Our men’s double of Will Miller and Glenn Ochal put on a good sprint to win their rep and also advanced to tomorrow’s A/B semi. Our other pair, Meghan Musnicki and Susan Francia, finished second in their heat to advance to the A/B semi, where they will face off against USA1.

Banks, Stitt, Monaghan, and Stafford in the M4-

There was also exciting racing by our men’s fours. Both took a trip through the reps after tough draws this morning, and both won their reps, including a win by Silas Stafford, Ryan Monaghan, Sam Stitt and David Banks over defending World Champions France. The two fours will face off tomorrow in the A/B semifinal. The second women’s lightweight double of Ursula Grobler and Abby Broughton also made it through to the semifinals after a trip through the reps, and will race alongside USA1 in the A/B semi tomorrow.

Our men’s pair, Justin Stangel and Tom Peczek, will race in the C final tomorrow, as will our lightweight men’s four and men’s quad. After an extremely close rep, women’s single Gevvie Stone will also be racing in the C final tomorrow.

That’s all from Lucerne—bedtime here! Check back tomorrow for more updates and photos. Go USA!

***All photos courtesy USRowing.***

Ready to Race: Lucerne World Cup 2011!

After a whirlwind of racing last weekend and traveling on Monday, we have gotten in a good few days of training and are all gearing up to race tomorrow. The last few days have been pretty uneventful, but this afternoon we had a freak rain/thunder/hailstorm at the course! We just managed to get our boat racked and tied down before the deluge started...our lightweight men's four, however, wasn't so lucky, and had to row through the craziness just to get in.

We haven't had much of a chance to explore, but I have managed to take a few photos around the city and at the course. I put together a little slideshow here:

I am racing tomorrow in the women's quadruple sculls at 12:30pm Lucerne time (that's 6:30am Eastern, 3:30am Pacific, in case you're still up!) My boatmates Natalie Dell, Megan Kalmoe, and Stesha Carle and I are all excited for our first race together and to get out there and go! You can follow along at http://www.worldrowing.com/live-results to see both the live race results and a list of race results from the day.

First glimpse of us in action--this afternoon's race against the thunderstorm!

Thanks for all of the support and cheering during last week's racing...it means a lot to me and all of the other rowers here. This is our first official race of the season, and we can't wait to get to the starting line tomorrow. Boom. Go USA!