RowingRelated

High Tea with the Hoos The following is the fifth installment of our series with Virginia's Forrest Brown, after the Hoos' close loss to Hobart in the Temple Challenge Cup.

Virginia racing past the Progress Board in Round One of the Temple The following is the fourth installment of our #HoosGoingToHenley series with Forrest Brown of Virginia Men's Rowing.

Not long now! Catching up with the Hoos on the eve of Henley Royal Regatta What follows is the third installment of our #HoosGoingToHenley series, thanks to Forrest Brown of Virginia, as he and the Cavaliers gear up for the first day of racing at Henley Royal Regatta.

#HoosGoingToHenley, Part Two: Dude, where are our oars? While Henley is still a week away, it's time for the second installment of the #HoosGoingToHenley series, with Forrest Brown.

RR series: #HoosGoingToHenley, Part One As longtime readers of RowingRelated will remember, we have twice connected with athletes and crews heading over to Henley Royal Regatta in the past. This year, we're doing it again.

Washington among leaders, East and West (Photo: B. Kitch) The varsity-level national championships are in full swing, from Gold River, California to West Windsor, New Jersey, and there have already been some very impressive results posted in the heats and reps. While we missed our chance at pre-race predictions, we do have a few thoughts on just how things might shake out this year (more on that below), and, as ever, we're excited for the finals on Sunday. Let's take a closer look.

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.

The UCSB men on the Crew Classic podium, 2013 (Photo: B. Kitch) Without a doubt, the top-end speed in men's club rowing has been improving over the past few years, not least because of the development of the ACRA league. What will 2015 hold? Here are our picks for the long haul.

Kevin Sauer at the 2012 NCAA Championships (Photo: B. Kitch) Having done a little research recently, I discovered that, surprisingly, there's not much available on the Internets in terms of useful content for rowing coaches. Try scanning the web for decent examples of drills and technique, and you'll find that what is accessible to most is largely race footage, which certainly has its place in the coaching toolkit, but ultimately isn't that informative on its own. This is the first in a series on the best rowing drills, featuring some of the top junior and collegiate coaches in the U.S. If you like this idea, let us know, and share it—if it takes off, then we'll continue to build a library and create an index on our Rowing Drills page. For the first series, we'll be releasing the an article every Wednesday for the next five weeks. As with this post, this early series will be mostly geared toward sweep rowing, but sculling will also feature in the near future....

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.

Henley Royal Regatta is in full swing, with two days of great racing already in the books, and the field already greatly reduced, or at least transformed from lycra-clad rowers to bespoke blazer-donning spectators in the regatta enclosures. As with any Henley, there have been a number of surprises in the early going, not least of which has been the University of Virginia's progress through the first two rounds, recording 'Easily' verdicts in both cases on the way to their matchup with the Harvard frosh tomorrow—it should be an interesting race to watch! Molesey Boat Club has also been a force thus far in the regatta, with crews in the Visitors, Thames, and Brit Cup all moving on to Friday. Follow along with all the action live via Regatta Radio and the official website of Henley Royal Regatta (l ive results feed or Twitter stream ). Also, check out a huge collection of HRR images , thanks to Rowing Photography UK's Iain Weir. In the midst of all this Henley m...

Better late than never! The 2013 ACRA National Championships are nearly underway on Lake Lanier, Georgia, with expanded, eight-lane finals sure to make for exciting racing once again this year. Here are our thoughts on what'll happen this weekend: Men's Varsity Eight Virginia Michigan State Michigan Cavalier seniors Scott Stuard and Jonathan Furlong will be looking to set the record straight after a sixth place finish at Dad Vails, while Michigan State's Mike Slopsema  and the Spartans are hoping to back up their excellent performance in Philadelphia with more hardware in Gainesville. Wolverine junior Louis Schaljo and the Michigan men's varsity eight are coming off a win at ECACs, and Grand Valley, led by RR interviewee Justin Wegner , has a tough squad, and more experience than last year's campaign—the Lakers will be battling for a podium finish this year after just missing at ACRAs in 2012. Women's Varsity Eight Grand Valley Purdue UCSB S...

It's getting to be that time of year—that point in the rowing season where all the winter workouts, all the hours in the gym, all the dark morning sessions and extra weights after practice are distant memories, and championship race day is approaching. This video, which was published earlier this year by Marlow Rowing Club , gets at just what it means to put in the hours that no one sees in order to be at your best when it matters most. From the training, to the coaching, to the experience of racing, this one has it all. (And, it certainly doesn't hurt that it's arguably the most cinematic rowing film on the internet.) There have already been a number of surprises this season at both the junior and collegiate levels, with the Stanford men making their intentions clear in their annual dual with Cal , Marin and Oakland duking it out for supremacy at USRowing Southwest Junior Regionals , and Drexel defending home waters against all comers, including two-time defending ...

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):

Attention, Go! (Photo: B. Kitch) All of intercollegiate rowing's No. 1 teams are set to be in action this weekend*, with the top-ranked Washington  men at Redwood Shores to take on Stanford (details here ), NCAA  No. 1 USC taking on No. 2 Cal and No. 9 Stanford at the Lake Natoma Invitational (follow @NatomaInvite on Twitter for updates throughout the weekend), SIRAs taking over Oak Ridge, TN (follow @oakridgerowing for live results) and pitting ACRA men's No. 1 Virginia against rivals The George Washington University (last year's SIRAs champ), Jacksonville, FIT, Temple, Delaware, and others, while women's ACRA no. 1 Purdue will take on Crew Classic champions Central Oklahoma, Jacksonville, FIT & more. Last, but certainly not least, the No. 1 Stanford women's lightweights will take on Harvard-Radcliffe, while the No. 1 Harvard men's lightweights are set to do do battle with Navy (though these events may be postponed due to ongoing police activ...

Cal and Washington at the 2012 Pac-12 Championships (Photo: B. Kitch)  IRA Men 1. Washington Our top pick for 2013 is Washington. The Huskies are stacked, feature an Olympic silver medalist in Conlin McCabe , and recently showed that (despite their relative youth) they are nails, walking away from Cambridge on the Boat Race course (for more on that crew, click here ). At this point in time, UW boasts the best program top to bottom—they are loaded and will be hard to beat in any event. Still, there are new challenges for Washington: the departure of Luke McGee and the new freshman rule may make the frosh event an interesting one this year. 2. California If anyone is going to upset Washington in the varsity eight this year, Cal might just be the one to do it—the Golden Bears have great top-end speed. Led by a strong Serbian talent in Jovan Jovanovic (a sophomore who stroked the eight in the fall and is a Serbian U23 and junior national team member), fellow Serbians Igo...

1. California  Cal is our favorite to win the NCAA team championship in 2013. Their top-end talent in the varsity eight and team depth we expect will be too great for any other team in the country to handle.  Dave O'Neill  is a very good coach and has a clear understanding of what it takes to construct and manage a championship level team. Every year they are in the hunt, but they have not won since they won back to back team titles in 2005 and 2006. This year's team will be led by  Kara Kohler  who is back for her junior year after taking the 2012 season off to win an Olympic bronze medal in the W4x for the U.S. The Bears will also feature top international athletes  Papa Hipango  from New Zealand,  Rosie Popa  from Australia (though she has American citizenship and has raced at the U23 world championships for the U.S.), German junior national team member  Charlotte Siering , and Norwegian junior national teamer  Ingvild Ronning...

The 2012 NCAA Championships were, as expected, characterized by closely fought heats, semis, and finals, with the depth of the entire field improving from year to year and the top-end continually reaching new heights. Our pick to win the Division I title since January, Virginia , delivered in both the varsity eight and team points, with a solid performances from the varsity four (second) and second varsity eight (fifth) to set up the first eight for success in the grands. The Hoos left no doubt in the 1V, pushing out the margin in the second 1000m enough to hold off a very strong Michigan crew–with a second-place finish in the varsity eight and first place in the 2V, the Wolverines locked up second place in the team points standings, ahead of No. 1 California. As for our pick of Western Washington, well, the Jacks of Humboldt State showed that a new era may have begun in DII women's rowing. The Jacks were the class of the field in the varsity four, finishing roughly nine secon...

The Coast frosh head to the line at Redwood Shores (Photo: B. Kitch) There is a great deal to talk about in the rowing world these days, with rogue swimmers, Olympic selection, and World Cups around the corner, all of which makes it hard to keep pace with the results as all the regattas and championships begin to crowd one another into the month of May. SIRAs, which took place last weekend, featured a great deal of very close racing between teams in that hard-to-define place between the top-tier varsity programs and top-tier clubs, while WIRAs will feature still more such teams this weekend in Sacramento. [Disclaimer/Warning: The following content contains opinions.] SIRAs Review:  The 2012 SIRAs showcased the increasing depth of the club field as a very strong Virginia program continues to improve under head coach Frank Biller . Biller's boys fought a varsity program in George Washington all the way to the line in the varsity eight, with the Colonials eventually edging t...

Bears on the way to the line (Photo: B. Kitch) This weekend is likely to be one for the ages, with the California v. Washington dual at Redwood Shores, CA, SIRAs taking place in Oak Ridge, TN, the Yale heavyweights taking on Cornell in Ithaca for the Carnegie Cup, the No. 1 Virginia women attempting to defend their  ACC Championship title (having won 44 of the previous 48 races held at the last 12 ACC Championship regattas), and the Harvard men taking on Penn and a very strong squad from Navy , among many other intercollegiate match-ups. The Cal v. Washington dual pits two of the top four teams in the nation against one another on both the men's and women's sides, while SIRAs will see some of the top programs in the ACRA field go head-to-head in the men's and women's varsity eights. The Yale men are currently unbeaten in 2012, with sweeps over Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Penn–this weekend will prove perhaps the toughest test yet, though Cornell did n...