RowingRelated

Last weekend was jammed with great racing at the junior and collegiate levels, but look no further than these two races for some of the most exciting, and closely fought action on both sides of the Atlantic.

This week's videos come to us from Carnegie Lake, where the Princeton open women took on Yale last weekend, while the lightweight men battled Penn and Georgetown . The women's varsity eights race saw the Tigers take an early lead, and endure several strong moves by a very talented Yale crew to record a wire-to-wire victory—dealing the Bulldogs their first loss of this young season, and keeping the Eisenberg Cup in Princeton for another year.

The Schuylkill Course (Photo: B. Kitch) The 75th Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta kicks off today, with a ton of teams and a host of races taking over the historic Schuylkill course through Saturday afternoon. There are a number of familiar names that will likely be among the top programs once again this year on both the men's and women's sides, though there are a few upstarts that may just get your attention this weekend as well. And so, without further ado, here are our picks and predictions for the podium (warning—opinions follow):

This year's running of the Aberdeen Dad Vails was, without question, one of the biggest and best rowing events on the circuit, featuring live coverage via ESPN 3, commentary from Keith Russel of ABC (along with Liz Santaniello and Jason Read , who did a great job – even hitting us with a "they were all over that like spiders on a birthday cake" line at one point), interviews – the list goes on. Everyone involved deserves to be commended for their great work – the regatta has done a great deal for the sport in terms of exposure, city-wide involvement, and recognition of all that it takes to make collegiate rowing work. Watching the streaming webcast of the event on ESPN 3, I couldn't help but feel proud of all those competing, and thankful to all those who made the event possible. It's a massive step forward for rowing in the US. Now, let's turn our head to the results. On Thursday, we released our picks for the Grand Final of the Men's Varsity 8 (The Ab...