RowingRelated

Photo: Hannah Wagner The Henley Royal Regatta draw took place Saturday afternoon, in a room with no air conditioning. Fate and the stewards smiled upon some crews, and seemed to laugh at others ( Cornell vs. Syracuse in the Temple Challenge Cup on day one—one assumes that had St. Joe’s or Drexel come this year, they’d have gotten Temple first). Not many things in life are decided by a Commander of the British Empire in a blue blazer with five Olympic gold medals picking your name out of a goblet, but Henley isn’t like a lot of things in life. First off, the Temple. The wording of eligibility used to exclude anyone that made a "blue"—i.e., made one of the top two eights of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race—or the American equivalent. This was typically enforced as no one from an EARC or PAC-12 first varsity eight. That was replaced with "won a U23 medal."* Never say never, but it's now conceivable that any of the top American collegiate crews with j...

Part 2 of our series with Potomac Boat Club (Photo: Jordan Sandberg) The following is the second installment of our series on American Club Rowing, with Peter Clements of Potomac Boat Club. Here, Clements discusses what makes Henley Royal Regatta such an important experience for a club, or even elite rower. Why Henley Royal Regatta? Racing at Henley is running the Belmont Stakes, Preakness, and Kentucky Derby three days in a row (plus another two races if you're lucky), but in a jacket and tie, using borrowed equipment, and on perhaps the most difficult race course ever devised. Most important to consider is that in this analogy, you're the horse. Old newsreel footage of FDR watching IRAs in a special-built train car, or the gilded age yachts that allow old Bonesmen to follow Harvard-Yale hint at this sort of experience, but the deep, deep history on which Henley is built puts the Regatta in a class all its own. The spectacle and experience of the event makes it ...

The top 10 best rowing coaches, including guess who (Photo © Iain Weir / Rowing Photography ) It's time for the third and final part of our 3-part series on the best of the best in the rowing coaching ranks. These coaches not only command respect based on performance, but have also shown the ability to adapt to new circumstances, build dynasties, and ultimately help shape the trajectory of rowing as a sport. Honestly, it would be easy to extend this series into 10 more posts... But we wouldn't do that to you. As we've said before, the hope is that the following may serve to educate and spark discussion, as both an appreciation of history and of the coaching craft. Also note: As we stated in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, there are few women in this list, but that is a reflection of a general underrepresentation of women in the head coaching ranks in our sport—and indeed (as has been well documented ) a growing number of NCAA sports in the United States. ...

It's an old one, but still so watchable. In August, 2000, the BBC aired a three-part documentary series named Gold Fever on primetime TV in the UK. The episodes followed the British coxless four crew of Steve Redgrave (who had at that point won four consecutive Olympic gold medals), Mathew Pinsent , Tim Foster , and James Cracknell through the highs and lows of four years training in the run-up to the Sydney Olympics, and what would be Redgrave’s fifth and final Olympic Games. The series, comprising mainly intimate video diaries recorded by the four athletes, shows everything from Redgrave’s diabetes diagnosis to the birth of his daughter between training camps, erg testing, and tough selection decisions. "In fact, I truly believe that it was the catalyst that sparked my head-first jump into complete rowing obsession." The real life drama of it—not only a must watch for anyone who has experienced life as a rower—would be interesting to anyone. The series hol...

JDS in his element (Photo © Tristan Shipsides) Before he decided to pursue a world record off the water, Australian Josh Dunkley-Smith had already earned two Olympic silver medals in one of the slickest crews to grace the rowing course, the Australian men's four—really, an institution in our sport. It's not as though he didn't know he had an engine, but, as he says below, it wasn't until recently that the pursuit of his own physical limits made the idea of a new 2k world record seem within reach. And recently, that potential came to fruition. 1. With two Olympic medals already to your name, it would be easy to say that you had nothing to prove—what was it that drove you to want to break this record? JDS: "The fact that it was held by a Kiwi. [Laughs] Nah, I think mainly just the self improvement aspect really—challenging yourself and seeing how far you can really push things. You follow that all the way through, and I was lucky enough that I sort of found...

This week's featured video comes to us from Northeastern grad and noted rowing 'vlogger' Cameron Buchan , who takes us along on a cold Caversham morning for a look inside the British Rowing training 'centre' on 2k prep workout day. The video features a lot of prepping for prep, with the athletes taking some hard strokes in the midst of their warmup for the pieces—certainly more than we're accustomed to seeing from inside the mothership, but precious little in terms of erg score insight (no surprise there—though there is a decent bit of post-ergo banter to finish it off). You can check out Buchan's take on the Eights Head here . BREAKING: Josh Dunkley-Smith just posted the fastest 2k ever. Seriously. 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/th3cDjuA8c — RowingRelated (@rowingrelated) March 10, 2018 ON THE HORIZON: Speaking of ergs, stay tuned for an interview with Aussie legend Josh Dunkley-Smith , sometimes known simply by the hashtag #JDS, following his record-br...

Our featured video this week comes to us thanks to U.S. Olympian Esther Lofgren , 2012 gold medalist in the women's eight. Here, Lofgren shares some of her thoughts on an Olympic final from Athens, which included some of our sport's most important and influential names. From Lofgren: You’ve posted a lot of the videos I watched while training and that I encourage my athletes to watch. One I think does not get enough love is the 2004 W2- Olympic final featuring the Romanian greats Georgeta Andrunache [formerly Damian] and Viorica Susanu . Susanu is the last rower I recall who reaches around her knees in sweep. The catches, connection, and rhythm are beautiful, and the rowing (at 37+, in an Olympic final, etc., etc.) looks effortlessly efficient. The race for medals behind them is also great to watch— Kath[erine] Grainger sweeping (!) and Cath[erine] Bishop leading their pair in a fantastic sprint for silver, sprinting through Yuliya Bichyk and Natallia Helakh of Bel...

Ohio State and Cornell face off on land (Photo: Madeline Davis) The following is the fourth and final installment from the Buckeyes' trip to England for Henley Women's Regatta and Henley Royal Regatta, thanks to senior rower Stephanie Williams.

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.

Bucks on the river bank (Photo: Madeline Davis) What follows is the second dispatch from senior Stephanie Williams of the Ohio State women's squad, after a very successful weekend of racing in England.

Weekend of racing in Amsterdam (Photo courtesy Heineken Roeivierkamp/Facebook ) Press Release: Olympic rowers competing on the Amstel River. The Heineken Roeivierkamp rowing regatta takes place for the 45th time on March 11th and 12th 2017. With 3,500 participants from all over the world and 10,000 spectators, the Heineken regatta is the largest rowing regatta of the Netherlands. It is the traditional start of the Dutch rowing season where the elite crews will compete against each other for the first time of the year.

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.

Looking back on Rio Hard as it may be to believe, the Rio Olympics are now done and dusted. Four years of preparation, four years of early mornings, four years of squeezing in an extra session on your ‘off’ day to help pave the way to the podium. It either worked, or it didn’t. One thing is certain — we’re all better for it. But Rio, in many ways, was a dichotomy—in other words, it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. Here’s what I mean.

Separating myth from reality And we mean that in two ways. First, we mean let's stop pretending that doping couldn't possibly be going on in rowing because (by and large) it's an amateur sport. And second, we mean that given recent alarming findings by the IAAF , we need to start having open conversations about it. There's a popular sentiment in the rowing community that nobody is doping because there's no financial incentive to do so. In sports like cycling, track and field, tennis, and football, there are tremendous financial gains to be made—'not so in our sport,' we say. But is that really true? And, even if it is largely true, does that matter? The answers are no, and no. As for the first assumption, there is plenty of evidence of people doping in amateur sports. Here are two examples, from The Independent , and the Washington Post . There are plenty more, but let's not labor the point. And regarding financial incentives, while rowing is larg...

An epic week in Henley-on-Thames (Photo: RR Staff) This year's Henley Royal Regatta was not short on excitement, crashes, upsets, and even controversy. The one thing that's indisputable, in our opinion, is that it boasted the best coverage of any regatta in the world to date, including the Olympic Games.

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.

Looking back at the competition in 2015 (Screen capture) It's officially Henley week! And, just in case you're not already champing at the bit with anticipation, here's the latest video from Henley Royal Regatta , looking back on some of the outstanding performances of American crews—of which there were a record number of entries—in 2015.

The Aussie men's four on the water (Screen capture) This week's featured rowing video comes to us from Down Under, where the very quick Australian men's four is putting in the miles for Rio.

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 .

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.