RowingRelated

The above gallery includes our favorites from the RR Flat Water Tuesday Photo Contest —a beautiful collection of images! A huge thanks to St. Martin's Press, and all those who participated! Winners: we'll be in touch shortly via email to sort out the logistics. If you'd like to read more about Flat Water Tuesday , here's what people are saying on Goodreads . (Mobile users: Click here to view the photo set on Flickr.) And, what better time to celebrate the beauty of rowing than following what is arguably the most prestigious rowing race in the world, Henley Royal Regatta —itself certainly not short on stunning scenery (on and off the water)! This year's Henley included some of the most remarkable match-ups, and edge-of-your-seat races, of the 2013 season, not least of which were the two finals that pitted U.S. collegiate varsity crews against GB squad entries. Much more on that to come very shortly. -RR

This week's video comes to us from the Bosbaan, where the 2013 Holland Beker saw truly elite, international competition over the weekend. Perhaps the most outstanding racing came in the women's single, where the A Final closely mirrored a world championship or Olympic final in recent years—the lineup included two-time Olympic champ Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus, Kim Crow of Australia, New Zealand's Emma Twigg , reigning Olympic champion Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic, another two-time Olympic champion (albeit in the women's eight) in Eleanor Logan , and 2012 Olympic bronze medalist (also in the eight) Chantal Achterberg of Holland.  As it turned out, the final was a wire-to-wire victory for Kim Crow, who looks to be on top form and may be the athlete to beat in this event for the foreseeable future, holding off both Karsten and Twigg in the closing stretch, with Knapkova finishing fourth. Elle Logan had another solid race in a great field, finishing just ove...

The NCAA, IRA, and USRowing Youth National Championships are all in the books, and school's out for the summer. And, for all you scholar-athletes out there, it's the perfect time to start thinking about your summer reading list. Naturally, being that we're pretty into rowing (and likely you are, too), books that involve the sport are generally more appealing. Set on the East Coast of the United States, author Ron Irwin's Flat Water Tuesday tackles more than rowing, though the sport is at the heart of the narrative, and features a Boat Race, or Harvard-Yale Regatta, kind of rivalry between the main character's school, Fenton, and Warwick. Irwin's background includes experience as a rower at Kent School, and his prose draws you into a story that has a sense of awe and mystery, with a tinge of the irony that is born of reflection. The protagonist is one Rob Carrey, a filmmaker who splits his time between Cape Town, South Africa and the Eastern United States (muc...