3 GRP U23 Boats Qualify For World Championships

Last Updated: 10.Jul.2019

This morning wrapped up this year’s edition of US Rowing Mega Trials (officially known as Under 19, Under 23, Para, and Senior Trials III, but that sounds far less exciting). For the Green Racing Project, this regatta included Trials for the Senior Men’s Quadruple Sculls and Double Sculls as well as all of our U23 Sculling boats that are training at the Center for the summer racing season. We had three boats qualify for U23 World Rowing Championships in the U23 Men's Double Sculls, U23 Men's Quadruple Sculls, and U23 Lightweight Women's Double Sculls.

In our M4x we had Lucas Bellows, Kevin Meador, Wes Vear, and Nathan Lado. In the M2x Andy Raitto teamed up with former GRP Rower Tom Graves who came back to Craftsbury for a week to train in the double leading up to trials. On the Women’s side of our U23 entries, we had Rhiannon Mulligan in the BW1x, Jenny Mcilvane in the lightweight BLW1x, Mackenzie King and Laura Hegemann in the BW2x, and Grace Joyce and Liza Ray in the lightweight BLW2x. On the Men’s side, we had a BM4x comprised of Nathan Phelps, Sam Gatsos, Jack Reid, and Thomas Johnson as well as a BM2x with Mark Couwenhoven and Cole Dorsey. It was a great week of racing for the Green Team.

Racing started off Sunday evening with time trials for all entries except for the Men's 4x and the U23 Women’s Lightweight 2x who both went straight to a Wednesday morning final. The BM4x and BM2x started things off strong by winning their respective Time Trials. For the women, Mulligan and King/Hegemann finished fourth in their time trials and Mcilvane finishing fifth. Graves and Raitto finished third in their time trial. 

Monday morning’s racing consisted of heats for the BW2x, BLW1x, BM2x, and M2x. Hegemann and King finished second in their heat, relegating them to Tuesday morning’s Repechage. Dorsey and Couwenhoven won their heat decisively by 23 seconds, advancing to their Wednesday final. Graves and Raitto also placed second in their heat, sending them to their respective rep on Tuesday. Mcilvane rounded out the GRP’s Monday races by also placing second in her heat and sending her to the rep on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning saw fast racing conditions with the U23 Women’s 2x repechage starting the Greenies. Hegemann and King placed second in their rep, eliminating them from racing. Graves and Raitto won their repechage which advanced them to the M2x final on Wednesday morning. Mcilvane raced immediately after the M2x, also winning her rep and advancing to the final.

Wednesday morning followed up Tuesday with even faster conditions with flat water and a generous tail wind. Mulligan placed fourth in the final for the Women’s U23 1x. Dorsey and Couwenhoven again controlled their race, winning by a comfortable 11 seconds and locking in their ticket to race at the U23 World Rowing Championships later this month in Sarasota, Florida. The U23 4x placed second in their final to the lightweight quadruple sculls from USRowing’s lightweight selection camp. The lightweight boat declined the bid to race in the open weight event at U23 Worlds and, therefore, the GRP U23 Quad was given the bid to race at U23 Worlds alongside our double. The GRP M4x placed second in their final to the Penn AC Composite 4x which has GRP athlete John Graves in bow seat who will now race in Linz, Austria at the World Rowing Championships in September. Following the M4x, Jenny McIlvane placed fourth in her final. Rounding out the week’s racing for the GRP, Ray and Joyce won their final and punched their tickets to Worlds this month.

Full results can be found here.

The U23 World Rowing Championships start July 24th in Sarasota-Bradonton at Nathan Benderson Park. Race fast, Greenies!