RowingRelated

Hands in after training  My alarm goes off—it’s 4:22am.  It’s been a while since I did this. Immediately, I think back to a college dorm room, rolling out of bed and running down the steps to carpool caravan to Marina Del Rey.  Not this time, though. It’s a Tuesday in late September, and I’m heading across the Golden Gate Bridge to Greenbrae, California, where I’ll meet with the Marin Rowing Men’s Masters squad. Fortunately, it’s an unusually warm morning—and when I roll in, the boathouse is already buzzing with activity.  Launch time: 5:10. Heading out into the Bay before dawn The Marin Rowing Association program has both men’s and women’s masters boats competing to win at every event they attend. In the fall, that can only mean one thing: The Head Of The Charles .  The boat that Coach Rodrigo Rodrigues and I spend most of our time with is the Grand Masters eight—average age 60+. But that’s just one of five crews that launched with us that morning. Everyone’s ...

It's nearly time... The second year of Sir Steve Redgrave’s tenure as Regatta Chairman has seen a record entry of 629 crews, including 165 foreign crews—in itself a record, and up 45% on last year’s figure of 114.

Marin training on home water, spring 2016 (Screen capture) And we're back! This week's featured video offers a glimpse of some high-intensity training with the 2016 Marin Rowing Association men's varsity eight.

Crews to keep an eye on this spring at the junior level The following is our look at the best junior sweep teams across the country, with a view toward who will be gunning for the top of the podium at the national level in June.

Marin Rowing, 2015-2016 Preview (Screen capture) This week's featured video comes to us from Marin Rowing Association, and offers a quick window into their early season preparation and program outlook for the 2015-2016 season.

You may have heard of the ESPY Awards, ESPN's annual awards series. Well, they are only slightly less prestigious and highly coveted than the RoRys, our annual awards here at RowingRelated.

The junior women's eight from the Netherlands training on Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon (Photo courtesy Erik Mus) The World Rowing Junior Championships are set to kick off this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and despite the less-than-ideal water conditions (a situation that is a developing concern for the upcoming Olympic Games as well—of that, more later), the world's best high school rowers are keeping a sunny disposition and gearing up for a week full of racing.

Kent School Boat Club at Dorney Lake (Photo courtesy of KSBC) This week's featured video comes to us thanks to Sam Haack of Kent School Boat Club, as KSBC prepares to take on the competition in the Temple Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta, starting tomorrow!

Last strokes of the men's varsity eight final at USRowing Youth Nationals, 2015 (Photo: J. Price) It was another Year of the Dynasty in college rowing in 2015, but this year’s running of USRowing Youth Nationals saw new champions crowned.

Coxswain's view of the Norcal men's lightweight eight (Screen capture) This year's running of USRowing Youth Nationals is in the books, and while the college rowing championships saw repeat champions in most cases (and the return of the Stanford Lightweight dynasty in others), the racing in Sarasota featured a bevy of new crews crowned.

Newport Aquatic Center blades at Nathan Benderson Park (Photo: A. Mihaylo) Nathan Benderson Park may be getting more than its fair share of rain lately (can you send some out to California, please?), but that's not going to slow down the fastest juniors in the U.S. this weekend at the 2015 USRowing Youth National Championships.

RR junior rowing rankings Here at RowingRelated, we're all about knowledge. And, what better way to put a little of it to use than to make some brash picks and predictions? So, for the first time, we're putting together the official RR rankings for junior men's and women's rowing programs, based—for the most part—on sweep rowing results in the big boats, following the college model. This will naturally change and adapt in the future—it's not a perfect system. But it's a start. Here are our picks for Spring 2015. Attention, go.

Nick D'Antoni (top left) coaching at a USRowing junior ID camp, 2015 (Photo: B. Kitch) USRowing junior national team coach Nick D'Antoni is no stranger to success. Here, he shares some insight into how to build technique and style for the long haul.

This week's video comes to us from Kent School Boat Club, and documents their recent Florida training camp, which evidently featured some changeable weather, plenty of hard strokes, and a solid dose of off-the-water banter.

The view from the MRA boathouse (Photo: B. Kitch) While the fall rowing season in the U.S. may be largely at an end, the Marin junior men's program are continuing to log the miles that make champions. Having narrowly lost the Men's Youth Eight event at the 2014 Head Of The Charles to Bay Area rival Oakland Strokes (the East Bay crew finishing just over one second ahead of Marin, who came in as defending champions), the MRA varsity men bounced back at the Head of the American (held at Lake Natoma, just outside Sacramento, California) the following weekend, winning the men's junior eight event over Southern California's Newport Aquatic Center by roughly nine seconds (though NAC placed three crews in the top 10, taking second, third, and eighth place—and, given the return of head coach Nick D'Antoni to Newport, they'll be a team to watch going forward this year). Have you been grinding out the low-rate, long distance miles as we gear up for winter? Sen...

This week's featured video playlist pulls together six different Aussie college (high school) rowing films, each of which is strikingly well made—and all of which get you ready for racing. From on-the-water training shots, to land workouts, to race footage, this playlist offers insight into all aspects of the sport, as well as (hopefully) inspiration to all those rowing filmmakers in the U.S. gearing up for a long winter and spring season of training and competition. The schools included in this playlist are Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), from North Sydney, New South Wales; Scotch College (Perth, Western Australia); Brisbane Boys' College (Toowong, Queensland); Melbourne Grammar School (Victoria); The King's School , from North Parramatta (suburbs of Sydney), New South Wales, Australia; and St. Joseph's Nudgee College (Boondall, suburb of Brisbane, Queensland). And speaking of Australia, this coming weekend marks the renewal of a traditional r...

Eliot Bridge, Charles River (Photo: B. Kitch) The 50th Head Of The Charles is, well, a big deal. That much is obvious from looking at the entries in the Championship events—rowing stars and Olympic medalists abound, not to mention a host of the top collegiate programs from across the country, and across the pond. So, naturally, we feel obligated to shoot our mouths off about what's going to happen over the weekend—here's hoping we're better at predicting the outcome in rowing than ESPN is at picking winners in baseball . Here we go.

The 2014 season is now complete, and before we get started with the 2015 campaign,  it's important to take time to reflect on the outstanding achievements from another year of racing in our favorite sport (that's rowing, in case you need us to spell it out for you). This marks the fourth edition of our RoRy Awards (can you believe it?), and, since we cover three tiers of racing here at RowingRelated, we'll be recognizing and celebrating the best of the best at the junior, collegiate, and elite levels throughout the weekend. And so, without further ado, the 2014 RoRys for excellence at the junior level go to...

This week's video comes to us courtesy of the Long Beach Junior men's squad, and details their training leading up to their victory in the eight at the 2014 USRowing youth national championships. Despite winning both the heavyweight four and pair at Southwest Regionals, the LBJC coaching staff and athletes elected to bring the eight (which had finished a distant third in their region, some nine seconds off the pace). Evidently, they were onto something. From the get-go at nationals, it was clear that LBJC had found an extra gear in the eight, posting one of the fastest times of the regatta in the heat (and this with a 10-second lead and no need to push). (For a complete recap from the 2014 youth national championships, plus race video clips, see our race coverage here .) Now, LBJC athletes Luke Khoury and Allen Reitz are representing the U.S. in the JM2- in Hamburg, while Izak Epstein is racing in the JM4-. The junior men's pair has a field of 26 crews and a very hi...

This week's featured videos are thanks to you, the reader—both of these nicely edited training films were submitted via the RR Facebook page , and offer a window into a season of rowing with Hampton School Boat Club (England) and Jes Rowing, or rather, Coláiste Iognáid Rowing Club (Ireland). HSBC is fresh off a second-consecutive Henley Saturday appearance—Hampton School edged Brunswick (USA) on Friday by a quarter of a length, only to fall to St. Edward's (the eventual runner-up to Eton College) in the semifinal—that capped off a successful season, while Jes Rowing recently competed at the Irish national rowing championships, winning silver behind Skibbereen in the men's J14 coxed quad. The video below shows the Jes crew training on the River Corrib in Galway. Thanks to Rob and Daragh for submitting the videos! Have a submission for 'Video Of The Week?' Shoot us an email at rowingrelated [at] gmail [dot] com, send us your suggestions via Twitter , or get in...