GRPRow at Nationals
Keziah Beall and Jamie Chapman, National Champions in the women's 2x (photo credit USRowing)
Last Updated: 27.Jun.2014
The Craftsbury Green Racing Project came home this weekend from a busy and successful week of racing in Princeton, New Jersey. The group has five new members of the senior national team, a double on the U23 team as well as five national champions and four more medals at the USRowing National Championships. After the Senior/U23 national team trials ended on Wednesday morning it was a quick turnaround to begin the time trials for the USRowing National Championships. Without the pressure of selecting boats for the national team, the GRP was able to enter a slew of different events, with some athletes racing up to seven times in 48 hours!
While looming thunderstorms cancelled the men’s lightweight single and heavyweight double time trial Wednesday evening, four of the Craftsbury women’s singles and all of the women’s doubles made it to the heats on Thursday morning. The progression from there was tough, with only the winner earning a berth in the A final and the rest of the field going to an afternoon repechage. Elizabeth Sonshine and Emily Driessigacker won their heat in the women’s double to advance, along with Hugh McAdam who won his heat in the men’s lightweight single. The rest of the group would race in the repechage, with up to four races in one day for those who were competing in more than one event. The three Green Racing Project women’s doubles made it out of the repechage to the final, as well as Sarah Keller in the women’s lightweight single. Recent winners of the U23 men’s heavyweight double Erik Frid and Walter Banfield missed out on the final by a second in what was some of the closest racing of the day.
Friday brought the A finals in all events, with eight Craftsbury boats making it to the start line to compete for medals. Sarah Keller was first to race, taking 5th in the women’s lightweight single (3rd US finisher). Hugh McAdam was up next, taking the win in the men’s lightweight single by a definitive six seconds. Phil Henson and Phil Grisdela were back in the lightweight pair, winning over a crew from the New York Athletic Club by 13 seconds to take the top spot. Keziah and Jamie would cross the line first in the women’s double final, while Elizabeth Sonshine and Emily Driessigacker were just one second out on a top-three finish, with the twins of Rebecca and Liz Donald in 5th place. The women’s quad brought together three of the SBTC rowers (Kate Miller, Amy Ludovici and Mary Carmack) along with GRP athlete Maggie Fellows to take a silver medal in the women’s quad. Finally, Hugh McAdam, Phil Henson, Phil Grisdela and Walter Banfield had entered in a lightweight quad but were moved to the heavyweight event after a late scratched entry in the lightweight event. Unphased, the crew was in contention for a top-three finish with 500m to go but didn’t have the power to seal the deal, taking 5th place.
Find full results of the 20 entries that Craftsbury brought to the regatta here.
The group now heads off in different directions, with the men’s heavyweight quad racing at the Henley Royal Regatta in England and third World Cup in Lucerne, Switzerland. Josh Konieczny is racing at this weekend’s Holland Beker regatta in Amsterdam in the men’s lightweight double before returning to Boston. Kyle Lafferty will be training in Boston with the lightweight quad before all three crews head to the world Championships in Amsterdam at the end of August. Walter Banfield and Eric Frid are back in Craftsbury getting ready for the U23 World Championships in Varese, Italy in late July. The rest of the group has their sights set on Canadian Henley in St. Catherines, Ontario the second week of August.
Be sure to keep track of the Craftsbury website, facebook page and twitter feed to follow all the action, go Green!