RowingRelated

The Wall Street Journal got involved in the debate surrounding the US National Team this week, publishing an article that is the first appearance to date of any reasoning behind the moves as expressed by Glenn Merry himself. The rationale, according to Merry, is directly related to training -- the warmer climate in California allows year round training on the water, and, given the US men's failure to bring home any hardware from Karapiro in November, the US Rowing leadership decided that the move would facilitate rapid improvement in small boat categories. The results from the RR short answer poll show that the move is a divisive issue: 38% believed the move was a bad decision, while 32% backed the move to California and 28% remained undecided. While I believe this is the right move in the long-term, there are a number of problems yet to be addressed in the wake of such a dramatic shift, and only 20 months left to resolve them. First, let's look at the benefits of the move f...

Yesterday, I published an article regarding the changes taking place with US Rowing. After reflecting upon it, I later decided that it was too early to form a strong opinion about the moves, given that so little of the background information has been released. I do, however, feel that it is important to acknowledge the changes taking place, as they have a great effect on the athletes training for London. Up to this point, the most informative article is posted to megankalmoe.com , as she sits on the HPC (High Performance Committee) as an athlete representative. From her position, she has access to the information behind the scenes, and being that she is there as an athlete representative, presumably she has a sense for how her fellow athletes are handling the situation. Overall, she describes the feeling coming out of the meetings as positive. The facts are as follows: The men's heavyweight program will move to the Arco Training Center in Chula Vista, CA, under the direction of...