Hello all,

My name is Lenny Futterman, and I am a member of the Small Boat Training Center (SBTC) group training alongside the GRP athletes at Craftsbury this summer. We have been down in Princeton, NJ for the Under-23 Worlds Trials, which concluded yesterday. The winners of the trials represent the country in Linz, Austria at the end of July for U23 World Champs. The group representing COC this year is comprised of myself (Boston University '14) and Lawrence Lopez (Yale '14) both rowing in the Men's Single, Maddie Lips (Yale '14) in the Women's Single, as well as Kate Miller (UCLA '15) and Maggie Fellows (St. Lawrence '13) rowing in the Women's Pair.

After an 8 hour van ride down from VT, we arrived to a hot, muggy Princeton Sunday afternoon. We rigged our boats, surveyed the course and went back to the hotel to relax a little before dinner. All the crews set aside a little time to get mentally prepped for the racing that would begin the next morning with heats, and repechages (second chance race) on Tuesday.

Starting things off for SBTC was the pair of Miller/Fellows. Their event included only 2 other boats, so they had a "race for lanes". All boats would appear in the final on Wednesday. In their first race together, they put together a respectable first effort, finishing 3rd, but only 3 seconds off the 2nd place pair, which came from the US U23 Women's Selection Camp. Saratoga was the winning pair for the race.

Next up was Maddie in the W1x. Maddie represented the US and COC last year at U23 worlds and has one more year of U23 eligibility remaining after this one. She won her heat by nearly 30 seconds, as well as posting the fastest time in all heats by 13 seconds.

In the final SBTC event of the day, the M1x, Lawrence (equipped with a brand new boat which he had never rowed before) finished 3rd in his heat, which meant that he would have to race the next day in the repechage in order to qualify for the grand final. He raced against the 2012 American entry in the M1x at U23 Worlds. I raced in the second heat of the event. I won by 15 seconds and posted the fastest time of the heats by 4 seconds.

On Tuesday, Lawrence was victorious in the rep, beating a sculler that he lost to in the heats as well as others. This now meant that half of the final of the Men's single would be Craftsbury athletes! The rest of the SBTC-ers spent the day practicing and relaxing before the finals on Wednesday.

This morning was a big day for all of us. The women's pair had a significantly better race in the final, putting 11 seconds of margin on the selection camp boat that had beaten them the day before. They were just 5 seconds behind the Saratoga 2- that won. It should be noted that the winning pair has rowed together for 3 years now, and our girls just started rowing together two weeks ago.

Maddie Lips rowed a fantastic race, winning the W1x event by an astounding 20 second margin. We are all very proud of Maddie and her hard work and aptitude in the single was clearly evident in her race. She has a bright future ahead of her and wish her the best of luck when she competes in Austria for the US.

In the Men's single final, I finished first in the event by a 6 second margin over the rest of the field. Lawrence finished 4th in the race. I am looking forward to once again representing both the US and COC in another country (I rowed in the M2x for USA/SBTC at U23's in '11).

There is no rest for the single's, we all are racing time trials for the Elite National Championships alongside the GRP tonight (ed - Wednesday). It is clear based on the GRP's wins in the M1x and LM1x at NSR1, as well as the 4 straight years that SBTC has sent a boat to U23 worlds that The Center is clearly among the elite training locations in the US. All the athletes return to the center this weekend following Nationals.Full Results.