RowingRelated

The men's sweep Great Eight training on the Charles (Photo: Sean Wolf) With the 50th Head Of The Charles Regatta looming ever larger on the horizon, the athletes and coaches have already begun to show up and start preparing for the main event. Earlier today, resident Charles' expert Sean Wolf of Rowing Illustrated captured several photos of the men's sweepers Great Eight—a crew that we highlighted in our Champ Eight piece recently, and which consists of Joshua Dunkley-Smith (AUS), Olivier Siegelaar (NED), Hamish Bond (NZL), Richard Schmidt (GER), Conlin McCabe (CAN), Henrik Rummel (USA), Francesco Fossi (ITA), and Jacob Barsoe (DEN), with Jack Carlson (USA) at coxswain. Looking at the photo, it appears that the above lineup has stuck, for now at least. Let the pre-race banter continue!

The further we get into the 2013 World Rowing Championships, the more it feels like there is already a 'great wave' (with apologies to Katsushika Hokusai, of course) of momentum building on the road to Rio. The racing has been, in a word, outstanding. In the video above, GB commentator Martin Cross breaks down Day Five at worlds, which featured several crackers, including the A/B semis for the the men's lightweight single and the men's four. As Cross mentioned in his race commentary (catch up on the semis here ), the men's four event appears to be wide open, with our top picks the U.S., Australia, and Italy looking very solid, as well as a sprinting Dutch crew and a surprising British boat that has bounced back from a B Final performance in Lucerne to crack the A final in Chungju. (While Cross mentioned that he'll have his eye on Italy to top the podium, we're backing our top pick, USA, to take the title.) The race of the day, however, may well have been ...