Open University Rowers Overtake: The men’s rowing team finished tenth in the IRA Championship. This year’s competition had 23 crews, with the Terriers placing second with 169 points, just four points behind Cornell and four ahead of Wisconsin. With 283 points, Yale came out on top, followed by California (272) and Washington (271). (255). On Sunday, three boats competed, with the second varsity eight coming in fourth place in the Petite Final. The varsity eight boats finished second in the 3rd Level Final.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boat_Race_1862
NEW JERSEY’S TOWN OF WEST WINDSOR – At the IRA Championships on Lake Mercer Sunday morning, BU men’s rowing finished 10th in the James Ten Eyck rankings, helped by a victory in the Petite Final in the third varsity eight. Owen Loeb stroked the 3V8 boat that won its Petite Final in 6:12.005 and ended 2.4 seconds ahead of Princeton in 7th place overall. After 500 meters, Peter Adams coxed the boat, which had a lead of more than a second (6:14.419). At 6:15.959 and 6:15.959, Syracuse, Cornell, and Penn rounded out the top five. In the opposite Petite Final, the 2V8 boat coxed by Matt Murphy and stroked by Harrison Steck was eighth halfway through.
Despite having the fastest 500-meter time of the six boats, the Terriers were just 1.8 seconds behind Wisconsin in second place and 2.5 seconds ahead of Cornell in fourth place, with times of 6:11.863 and 6:11.865, respectively (6:14.405). With a timing of 6:02.389 seconds, Harvard defeated Syracuse (6:07.223). The V8, coxed by William Mulhall and guided by Bowen de Gouw, fell behind Stanford early in the 3rd Level Final, with Drexel trailing by just 0.1 seconds through the first 500 meters. Penn came in third with a time of 6:01.342, just 2.2 seconds slower than Boston University’s 5:59.464 mark, which was good enough for second place. Drexel came in fourth after Temple and Columbia.
Pac-12 women’s Team won Championship
The women’s team won four of the five races they competed in, outscoring their conference rival, the University of Washington, by 2.5 points. The Cardinal won the regatta by a score of 43.5 points to 41.5 points for the Huskies. Washington came into the meet with an aim of extending its winning streak, having won the prior four Pac-12 championships. Stanford, on the other hand, attempted to break with tradition after finishing second in the previous seven national championships. Both are adamant about competing in the Pac-12 regatta.
Stanford’s novice eight won the first race of the day by 0.04 seconds over Washington in the final 500 meters. Stanford’s third varsity boat finished almost three seconds ahead of Washington, earning the team 3.5 points. Following their colleagues’ strong performances in the first two events, Stanford’s varsity four sprinted to victory in the third and final event. After a shaky start, the boat immediately found its stride and stormed back to beat Washington’s boat by more than four seconds. Following their victory, the Cardinal now holds a narrow lead in the league standings.
In their third straight silver medal, the second varsity eight nearly lost out on a triumph over the Huskies by a fraction of a second. In varsity eights, the Cardinal was only half a point ahead of Washington, but they had held their own throughout. The winner of this race would determine the conference champion. The Cardinal triumphed by more than five seconds this time, ending the Huskies’ four-year hegemony and clinching their first Pac-12 title in eight years. In a separate ceremony, Stanford senior coxswain Nicole Pofcher was named Pac-12 Women’s Rowing Scholar-Athlete of the Year. As a member of a women’s rowing crew, Pofcher has won the prize six times.
The Men Came in fourth place overall
The men’s team’s performance had a lot riding on it for Stanford. It was the Cardinals’ ninth consecutive fourth-place finish on Dexter Lake, something they haven’t done since 1984. Cal won the Pac-12 team title by seven points on Sunday. Stanford concluded the day with 42 points, a significant deficit. The Cardinal finished second in varsity eight and third in varsity eight, putting them on top of the podium in both events. The squad will compete at the IRA Championships next. The festivities in West Windsor, New Jersey will take place from June 3 to 5.
It’s critical to keep your eyes on the prize when rowing. There are two basic routes for this type of rivalry to arise. As a result, a rowing head race is more akin to a time trial than a race to see who will be the first to finish. As a result, it’s better suited to rivers with narrow channels, and the skills necessary are different from those for sprint races. The crews start the course at separate times since they are fighting against the clock rather than each other in a head-to-head race. After winning an automatic bid through their conference championship, the team will spend the next two weeks preparing for the NCAA Championships. On May 27-29, they will be held in Sarasota, Florida. Stanford must improve on their second-place performance at the NCAA Championships last year.
The rules and procedures for each type of head race are different. The annual Head of the River Race for Eights, which takes place on the Thames River in March in London, is one such event (there are separate races, on different days, for men and for women). Instead of going upstream on a flood tide, the teams will travel from Mortlake to Putney on an ebb tide, following the same path as the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. The river is clogged with boats, rather than just two, as the race attracts hundreds of teams. There is a limit of 420 participants due to safety considerations.
Our bodies were covered with a flurry of Tingly and Itchy Bumps
Another type of traditional head race is the “bumps” race, which takes place every year between the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge universities. Because the waterways in both Oxford and Cambridge are too narrow for side-by-side racing, a new kind of racing has emerged. Former bumps racers make up the majority of the university’s Boat Race crew. International sprint racing takes place on a 2,000-meter track, which is shorter than the 2200-meter circuit on the twisting River Cam in Cambridge.
Although the Oxford course is only 1000 meters long, only 13 boats compete there on a regular basis. Both universities celebrate annual celebrations, Torpids and Eights Week at Oxford and Lent and May at Cambridge. For the first time since 2014, the women’s rowing team wins the Pac-12 Championship, while the men’s rowing team finishes fourth. No. 2 Stanford women’s rowing won their first Pac-12 title since 2014 on Sunday on Oregon’s Dexter Lake, thanks to a string of outstanding performances. Similarly, the Pac-12 Championships saw the No. 10 men’s rowing team finish fourth, putting them in strong company.
The events vary, but here’s an example of a typical scenario:
At Cambridge, there are four men’s divisions during Lent and six in May, with 17 boats competing in each division (women’s divisions are also available). Crews are seeded depending on their previous results, both in terms of divisions and starting positions.
