RowingRelated

John Graves with USRowing (Photo courtesy Carlos Dinares) Among the top sculling athletes in the U.S., John Graves has plenty of experience racing at the international level. Here, we catch up with Graves on his thoughts about the last quadrennium, racing at Henley Royal Regatta, and tackling the next chapter as we shift our focus to the Tokyo Olympics.

In light of our recent opinion piece on the chatter surrounding USRowing in the wake of Rio's results, there has been a lot of back-and-forth about what 'coaching' means, and about how that relates to the athletes, and the wider culture of a team. While our position in the opinion piece was founded on the idea that the athletes were 'bought in' and executing the program as laid out by the coaches to the best of their abilities, U.S. national team veteran Mike Gennaro believes that some doubts crept in along the way, creating cracks in the team-wide trust that later became rifts.

First strokes, IRA Championships (Photo: RR) There has been a firestorm around USRowing recently, with top-level changes, the removal of the CEO and the High Performance Director, and a renewed approach to structuring the board and the High Performance Committee. Social media and the discussion boards have been overwhelmed with theories about how and why things went wrong, and Carlo Zezza even went so far as to write a 74-page book entitled The Boys in a Box  about all of the above. We've heard theories about too many international rowers, about divided priorities, about sculling being the one, true way to revitalize U.S. athletes on the international rowing stage. But we're pretty sure it's a whole lot simpler than all of that.

Racing to the line at Olympic Trials (Screen capture) Thanks to the Friends of Cal Crew YouTube channel, you can watch the sprint from this morning's race that determined who would be going to the Olympic Games in the men's pair.

The Kiwi Eight preparing for the Windermere Cup in 2015 (Photo: B. Kitch for ROWING Magazine) Spring racing season at the junior and collegiate levels in the U.S. is nearing Jimmy Fallon levels of 'fever pitch,' but before we get into what that means for the upcoming championships, we wanted to highlight this new interview with the Kiwi men's eight coxswain Caleb Shepherd .

Carlson and the USA LM8+ on the podium in Aiguebelette, France (Photo: © USRowing) We received the following letter, originally submitted to the editor of ROWING Magazine , from 2015 world bronze medalist coxswain Jack Carlson and the U.S. lightweight men's eight. A version of the letter was published in the March 2016 issue of the magazine.

The 2015 RoRys, Elite Edition (Photo thanks to David Watts) Are you ready to celebrate the best of the best, bar none, in rowing? Don't answer that, because we're going to do it anyway. Too. Much. Excitement. This being a pre-Olympic year, there was even more at stake at the World Rowing Championships, with qualification making every semifinal and final a tense affair. As usual, the best of the best rose to the occasion. Let's talk about it.

This week's video comes to us thanks to U.S. national team rower Matt Miller , who today released the latest in his series of training features with the men's eight, this one covering their summer training and the build up to the world championships.

Early morning training at California Rowing Club (Photo: B. Kitch) The final boats for this year's U.S. world championships team have been named, following trials on Wednesday in Princeton. And, we've got to say, we don't understand the logic behind the selection procedures for the men’s quad.

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.

Matt Miller (right) training with the U.S. men's eight (Screen capture) World Rowing Cup II is just around the corner, and the U.S. men's eight is gearing up to head over to Europe for their first international competition of this pre-Olympic year. And, thanks to the work of  Mike Gennaro  and  Matt Miller , we've got an inside (read: banter-laden) look at just who these guys are donning the red, white, and blue in the big boat this season.

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.

Lofgren training in the single (Photo courtesy of Esther Lofgren) Olympic gold medalist Esther Lofgren is no stranger to success on the water. In addition to her podium-topping performance with the U.S. women's eight in London, Lofgren also won two world titles (2010, 2011), with her first international medal—a bronze—coming in the women's straight four in 2006. Here, Lofgren shares some insight into the drills that have helped her progress technically along the way.

Mike Teti and Cal at Crew Classic, 2013 (Photo: B. Kitch) Talk to former U.S. Olympic rowing coach and current Cal men's head coach Mike Teti about drills, and you'll understand that it's about addressing specific problems in a methodical way. "Instead of saying what are my favorite drills, it's more what do I think the limiting technical factor of a given group is," he explains. "So we'll do a series of exercises that will help fix that problem. That's the approach that I take." He continues: "That said, for specific problems there are certain exercises that I think are really useful. You could say they're favorites [within that context]." The faster the boat class, the more the catch and the front end of the rowing stroke becomes paramount. If you're looking to work on the front end of the stroke, there are a few such favorites that Teti often uses with his crews. 1. Pause at Gunwale Pauses, in general, tap into ...

Michigan men racing at the Head Of The Charles (Photo courtesy of Gregg Hartsuff) Working from his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, longtime Wolverines head coach Gregg Hartsuff is putting together what he hopes will be a podium-ready team for the 2015 World University Games, under the aegis of USRowing. Following the performance at least year's World University Games, USRowing had decided against sending another team this year, but when representatives from the Games reached out to Hartsuff, he felt that it would be a worthy project, and USRowing later agreed to back the team. (The team will be allowed to use the official crest, and will be racing as the United States in Korea this summer, but must fund its own trip to the regatta.)

O'Leary (left) and Ellen Tomek on the podium in 2014 (Photo: USRowing/Ed Moran) Meghan O'Leary is much more than just an outstanding rowing talent. In fact, Meghan was a two-sport varsity athlete at Virginia —and neither sport was rowing. Growing up in the South, O'Leary wasn't exposed to rowing until she arrived at UVA, where one of her college roommates introduced her to the weird hours and extensive training schedule associated with our sport. Still, it wasn't until after college that she got bit by the rowing bug—having bantered back and forth with Virginia's Kevin Sauer , who suspected that she might have a talent for rowing, O'Leary decided to Google places to row near Hartford, where she was working full time for ESPN. And the rest, as they say, is history. Here's Meghan's take on how it all went down. Thanks very much to Meghan for doing the interview! You can stay up to date on Meghan's progress via her website , listed in our ...

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 Charles is just around the corner (Photo: © B. Kitch) The 50th Head Of The Charles Regatta is now just a few short days away, and while they're perfectly capable of running their own hype machine, we can't help but get amped when we look at the lineups for the men's and women's 'Great Eights' this year. The Women's Championship Eight will again see a crew of top-flight scullers take on a crew of elite sweep rowers from the national training center, and the men's event features not just one, but two Great Eights (one of sweep rowers, one of scullers), as well as national team crews from the U.S. and France. In a word: Stacked. Let's take a closer look.

There are lots of reasons to watch this video, but our favorite might be to learn that men's coach Bryan Volpenhein is the commissioner of the fantasy football league, and has "full veto power." This is the latest installment in senior national team athlete Matt Miller's series from a summer of racing at the elite level, which includes a look at the U.S. men's eight training in Princeton , traveling to Holland Beker , and racing at the second World Rowing Cup in Aiguebelette, France ( Part Two here ). While the men's eight just missed the podium this year, having swapped places with Poland from last season, it was nonetheless a strong summer showing, with multiple victories on the international circuit. And, there is a solid sense of team and of building toward a common goal at the training center, as well as an expanding group of athletes. Maybe it's these rose-tinted glasses we're looking through, but we're expecting good things in 2015. ...