RowingRelated

Julius Hirtzberger will be running our Instragram account this weekend at #WRCVarese The first World Rowing Cup of the 2016 season kicks off today (Friday) in Varese, Italy, and thanks to Julius Hirzberger , you've got a behind-the-scenes look at the regatta this weekend.

David Watts and the Aussie M4x training on the Rotsee (Photo: © David Watts) The third and final World Rowing Cup of the year is already well underway, with the heats earlier this morning and the semis and finals upcoming over the weekend

Results from H1 of the M2x (via  @SinkovicBros ) The second World Rowing Cup of the season is underway in Varese, Italy, and there are a couple international athletes who are winning both on and off the water. After the racing today, which saw both Mahe Drysdale and the Sinkovic Brothers progress to the A/B semifinals, three of the world's best scullers took to Twitter, with Drysdale challenging Martin and Valent Sinkovic to come race in the single. And the results? Fantastic.

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.

Close racing at the first World Rowing Cup (Photo courtesy of FISA/quattro media) This week's video comes to us from the beautiful shores of Lake Bled, Slovenia, and gives a hint of the atmosphere at the first of this year's World Rowing Cup regattas, as well as some insight into the starting-line rituals of several of the world's best rowers and scullers.

The GB men's eight celebrates in Amsterdam (Photo courtesy of Phelan Hill) The following piece comes to us from GB Olympic bronze medalist and current world champion  Phelan Hill , who guided the British men's eight to their first-ever world championship title in Chungju . Here, he recounts the journey through the 2014 season, which saw the GB men defend their title in Amsterdam. From Phelan: In 2013 I was lucky enough to be part of the GB men's eight that travelled to Chungju in Korea, making history in becoming the first eight from Great Britain to win the World Championships. This year we travelled to Amsterdam with the aim of defending our title, and becoming world champions for the second successive year.

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. ...

This week's featured video comes to us via World Rowing , and makes use of GoPro cameras to take us along for the ride with some of the best athletes and crews in our sport. There's no shortage of big names making an appearance, among them the Kiwi Pair , the men's eight from Australia , and the Romanian and Canadian women's eights. Mixing in a little slow-mo also makes this a good video for coaches to show their athletes, and that soundtrack! (Is this a first for FISA, going all Dubstep on us?) Whether you're new to the sport, or have been involved for many years, it's hard to beat watching a few athletes at the top of their game doing what they do best. 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 touch via our Facebook or Google+ pages. We're hoping to cover the World Rowing Championships in Amsterdam, but we need your help to do it. R...

2012 Kiwi men's double (Photo: B. Kitch) All Black, that is. They don't care if you're ahead at the 500m. They don't care about high strokes coming out of the starting area. They don't even much care about high strokes to finish off a sprint. Why? Because they know it's a 2,000-meter race, and they're not going to slow down.

This week's Sunday-edition video comes to us from the idyllic setting for the second World Rowing Cup stop of the 2014 season, Lake Aiguebelette. While it's the picture of natural splendor (and where Jamie Koven won his world title in 1997 ), it's not the easiest name to pronounce, or spell. Fortunately, Nathaniel Reilly-O'Donnell has you covered. Off to Egg-baguette for the @WorldRowing Cup. — N. Reilly-O'Donnell (@nrodtweets) June 18, 2014

We said it at the time, and it held true for the 2013 World Rowing Championships—the performance of Team USA at the final World Rowing Cup made a strong statement about their intentions, both for the 2013 season, as well as the long road to Rio. Not only did the new additions to the men's national team staff—men's coach Luke McGee and high performance director Curtis Jordan —make their presence felt immediately, the women's team continued to push the boundaries of the sport, setting yet another world best time in the eight (with yet another new lineup). In a word- DOMINATION! US Women's 8+ win setting a new World Record at #Wrclucerne http://t.co/lQ6ZYyuRnl — usrowing (@usrowing) July 17, 2013 The men's eight scored the first victory over the Germans since 2009, and the men's four held off a very strong Australian crew in a wire-to-wire win. While the results on the water were very impressive, equally so was the perspective of the athletes winning gold...

Lucerne skies (Photo: B. Kitch) Following the 2012 Olympic Games, there were significant changes to the structure and the personnel at USRowing, with the departure of Tim McLaren , and the subsequent hiring of Curtis Jordan and Luke McGee adding new blood to the system at the outset of a new quadrennium. At the time, we questioned the addition of a second high performance director, but lauded the hiring of McGee, given his track record of success at the college level and personal understanding of what it takes to be a national team oarsman. Also, while Bryan Volpenhein had taken his lightweight four through the qualifiers and to the Olympic Regatta, making the transition to one of the marquee events on the heavyweight side would be no easy task. Fortunately for those of us stateside, however, the two-time Olympic medalist showed, in no uncertain terms, that he was ready to take it on. The lead-up to London was often fraught with controversy for the U.S. men's squad, as t...

The United States has made quite an impression on the international stage in the early going at World Rowing Cup III in Lucerne, winning heats in the men's eight, men's four, and women's lightweight double—all in the fastest qualifying times—and with further solid performances from John Graves in the men's single (earning his way into the A/B Semifinals through the reps), the men's quad, and the men's lightweight four (which also earned a trip to the A/B Semi, winning the second of two reps). The men's eight made a statement with a wire-to-wire victory over the heretofore undefeated GB men's crew chock full of 2012 Olympic medalists, sending them to the reps—the American crew isn't short of 2012 Olympians, either, with Ross James , Steve Kasprzyk , Glenn Ochal , Tom Peszek , and coxswain Zach Vlahos on board. The women's double event saw two U.S. crews progress directly to the A Final, with 2012 bronze medalists Megan Kalmoe and Andrienne Ma...

The second World Rowing Cup of the 2013 season was quite the mixed bag, with a few of the top contenders from the 2012 Olympics in action, and showing no signs of tarnish on the armor. The runaway performance of the regatta, as many expected, came from the Kiwi pair, who set a new best time for the World Cup series, just under 6:16. However, in our eyes, the real stories from the racing in Great Britain were in the women's single, lightweight men's four, and lightweight men's double. In the women's single, Eleanor Logan showed that her results in Sydney were no fluke, and was an impressively close third behind two of the top athletes in women's sculling, Emma Twigg and Frida Svensson . Given those kind of results, it's hard to argue with the idea of simply leaving Logan in the single and building a new eight—this may be just what Terhaar has in mind. Meanwhile, on the men's side, former lightweight (and recent RR interviewee ) John Graves posted a stro...

While the European Rowing Championships took place last month in Seville, it's difficult to call them that when Europe's top team, Great Britain , was not on the premises. And, with somewhat reduced numbers of international crews making their way Down Under to the first of the World Rowing Cups in March, in some ways, this feels like the real beginning to the international season this year—and at the very site of the Olympic Rowing Regatta , no less! Still, even here, it's hard not to take note of the smaller size of the field, with no women's eight event, and only five crews in the men's eight (two of them from GB, one from the Czech Republic , which includes several oarsmen from their 2011 world championships crew and seven of last year's Euro bronze medalists, and crews from Poland —this course will look very familiar to these 2012 Olympians—and France , shown in the training footage above). It will, however, make for a very interesting regatta, with a nu...

Australia's Kim Crow might just be the best athlete in women's rowing, coming off an Olympiad with two trips to the podium, and now adding another Australian national title in the women's open single to her outstanding rowing resume. Fittingly, Part 9 (above) of Mike Nicholson's newest film, ' School for Sculling ,' is dedicated to Crow, who entered the racing in Sydney battling some physical issues that have kept her away from her regular training and racing regime, but who still got it done against a very talented field (including U.S. double Olympic champion Elle Logan , who finished just under three seconds back of Crow in second place). The racing at the first World Rowing Cup of 2013 kicks off on Friday morning at 8am Sydney local time, and the strongest squads are likely to be very familiar from the 2012 Olympic Games, with a great deal of the international talent focused on the women's side. Team GB will be looking to get the Road to Rio sta...

The GB Rowing squad for Sydney has a slightly different look to it some seven months after its most successful Olympic Games on the water, with coxless four double gold medalists Andrew Triggs Hodge and Pete Reed  (profiled in the above video, shot in 2011) moving into an eight for the first of the 2013 World Rowing Cups, along with fellow 2012 crew mate Alex Gregory . The eight will also feature several athletes from the 2012 bronze medal-winning lineup, in the form of coxswain Phelan Hill , Moe Sbihi , and Tom Ransley . On the women's side, 2012 gold medalist Helen Glover will take on international competition with new pair partner Polly Swann , as Glover's 2012 partner Heather Stanning is back on active duty with the British Army. The new-look duo will also double up into an eight guided by last year's Oxford Blue Boat coxswain Zoe de Toledo . For a full breakdown of the changes for the GB squad at the upcoming World Cup, please visit the official website of British...

This week's video comes to us from the British perspective of the Australian Youth Olympic Festival , and (as usual) includes a healthy dose of off-the-water banter in addition to training on the Nepean River. The GB squad had a fantastic regatta Down Under, with several athletes taking home medals across multiple events—young standouts Jack Beaumont and Luke Moon returned with three medals each, as did lightweights Jamie Copus and Ben Board . On the women's side, Anastasia Chitty and Nicole Lamb accomplished the same feat at the event. Alongside the training footage, this video also takes us through Sydney Harbor, with views of the iconic Sydney Opera House. Sydney is gearing up to host the Sydney International Rowing Regatta, which will include the first World Rowing Cup (March 22-24), as well as the King's Cup and Queen's Cup & Aussie national championships. The U.S. team roster was released last week, and includes many 2012 Olympians, with Grant ...

The Australian national rowing team is perhaps stronger than ever, with competitive crews across the board, boasting some of the most impressive individual talent anywhere in the world. Kim Crow is among those, having medaled at the world level as both a sweep rower and sculler, and having shown this summer that she is a force to be reckoned with not only double (following a silver medal in Bled last year, and another at the Munich World Rowing Cup stop last month along with partner Brooke Pratley ), but also the single–incredibly, just days after winning the women's single at the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta in Lucerne, Crow went on to take a silver medal at the Lucerne World Cup behind only perennial contender Xiuyun Zhang of China, and ahead of 2011 world champion Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic. Drew Ginn and his new-look 'Oarsome Foursome' are looking like they could provide some serious fireworks in London this summer, having gotten the racing se...

th <br> The Canadian women laid down a marker in Munich over the weekend, with the U.S. women's eight absent and currently in the process of reshuffling/reloading on home waters for the June 22nd naming date, when the USA men's and women's quads will also be announced, and the U.S. Olympic Rowing Team for London will be complete. The Canadian lineup in Munich featured Princeton grad Lauren Wilkinson (winner of the 2011 RoRy for Female Collegiate Athlete of the Year), another Princeton alum in 2006 grad Andréanne Morin (training for her third Olympics), two-time Big 10 champ with Michigan (and Beijing Olympian in the Canadian W4x), Janine Hanson , Syracuse alum Natalie Mastracci , and 2004 NCAA runner up with Yale, Ashley Brzozowicz , who raced in the CAN W8+ in Beijing along with Morin, and who was recently interviewed by World Rowing, in the video posted above. The stage is set for a cracker of a final in London, with what will likely be a new-...