Review of Trials

So after a few hectic and exciting days in New Jersey, several boats from Craftsbury have new travel plans for later in the summer. Everyone did very well at trials, with the men’s and women’s single scullers winning their initial time trial at Mercer Lake. Three doubles, both the heavy and light men’s, and one of the women’s doubles all had competitive results in the time trial, with only the second women’s double getting eliminated.

Wednesday morning’s finals proved to be very exciting. The heavy men’s double was the first race of the morning, with Craftsbury winning by only 0.03 seconds over a competitive Oklahoma City crew. The next race for Craftsbury was the men’s single, where Ben Dann won with an impressive 17 second margin over the nearest crew. The women’s double was the next race, where they unfortunately finished second to a boat from a national team selection camp. The women’s single sculler, Alicia Da'Loia-Moore, won her final by a sizable margin. The final race of the day for Craftsbury was the lightweight men’s double, which put on a push during the last third of the race to pull away from the rest of the field.

These four boats now get to travel to Amsterdam next week to compete for the United States in the U23 World Rowing Championships. In the days following the U23 Trials all of the boats also competed in Elite Nationals, with the most notable result being Ben's second place finish in the the men’s single, in a very accomplished group of rowers.

After upwards of five races in three days, most athletes spent the 4th of July weekend relaxing with friends and family before returning to Craftsbury. The calmness of Big Hosmer Pond after the clutter of Lake Mercer is a welcome change. Since the races in New Jersey were the first for many of the boats, it brought many technical flaws to light that we will try and fix over the next week and a half. We do this by rowing long distances at low ratings and medium pressure, with emphasis on technique. As the week has progressed we have started mid rating work, and this morning rowing 2-3 beats lower than race pace to try and transfer the changes we have made at lower ratings to our race pace. With our flights leaving for Amsterdam in less than a week, we are all trying to find the last bits of speed that will make us more successful.