Tuesday, February 19, 2013

2013 Crash-B Sprints: Nothing Junior About These Performances

Agganis Panorama (Photo: © Tom Lynam)
The 2013 Crash-B World Indoor Rowing Championships are in the books, and in the midst of many excellent results, three performances stand out from the crowd: first, high school senior Christine Cavallo took top honors in the women's junior lightweight event in a time (7:05.7—a new world record for the event) that would have won the women's open lightweight category, and was eleven seconds off the senior world record set by Ursula Grobler. Meanwhile, in the women's open event, high school senior Ruth Narode took fourth place overall in a very impressive time of 6:52.2. Both Narode and Cavallo are coming off stellar seasons, capped off with silver medal performances at the World Rowing Senior and Junior Championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria last summer. Not to be outdone, Ryan O'Rourke, representing Lawrenceville School, took first place in the junior men's heavyweight event in a time of 6:02.4 (down from 6:13.8 in his first appearance at Crash-Bs in 2011). Given all this, it looks like rowing has a very bright future here in the U.S.

The winner of the women's open event, Olena Buryak of Ukraine, posted a truly elite score to take the day, crossing the line in 6:31.6, while 2012 Olympic gold medalist Meghan Musnicki showed some serious speed as well, taking second in 6:39.7. Rounding out the top three was Tessa Gobbo of Brown, posting a 6:46.2 (dropping more than a split off her time from last year and sprinting her way onto the podium after a fourth place finish in 2012).

The men's open event saw Cal sophomore Christian Kader hold off Pavel Shurmei of Belarus for the Hammer, crossing the line in 5:52.1 to Shurmei's 5:53.5. (Shurmei recently won the European Indoor Rowing Championships in Essen-Kettwig, Germany.) In third place was last year's winner, Juan Carlos Cabrera Pérez in at 5:54. 5, while the University of British Columbia's Alex Janzen was fourth in 5:55 flat. In the men's open lightweight event, Delaware grad Colin Ethridge took top honors in 6:12.1, ahead of Harvard's Austin Meyer (senior national team in 2011 in the lightweight men's eight, U23 team in 2012 in the LM2x along with Nick Trojan).

Thanks to Tom Lynam for the great image! For complete results from Boston, please visit the official website of Crash-Bs.

-RR
Posted by RR Editor
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2 comments :

  1. Due to the peculiarities of the interpretation of NCAA rules, C.R.A.S.H.-B. have given into the demands of the collegiate coaches to keep the High School students who have aged out of the Junior classification out of the elite/open events. That meant that 2012 Junior Worlds 4- silver medalist Ruth Narode (USA), had to race with the slowest heat of the High School students with her closest competitors a good 40 seconds behind. I watched her race and was impressed she really pounded out the piece, going for time. She wound up winning the U-23 hammer in a time of 6:52.2 and came 4th overall in the Open Women’s race. Too bad the athlete's best interests get lost in rulebook.

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  2. RUTH IS A BEAST

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