IRA Friday: Pure Speed, Straight Away – IRA Regatta coverage

The buzz in the lead up to this 120th IRA has been the depth of the fields across the board in the men’s racing.

For the Varsity Eights, with the eastern crews coming off the tailwind-fueled speed show at Sprints and the western crews coming in with Stanford just a second off Washington in the Pac-12 medals behind #1 California, it can pretty easily be argued that it has been a while since so many crews have arrived at the IRA with a legit shot at the final.

In the Lightweight Men’s and D3 fields, tight racing is almost always the order of things, especially when the top crews are given another few weeks to fine-tune their speed.

When the starter’s flag started dropping on Friday morning, these deep fields did not disappoint, and all the racing took place on flat and fast water today. The building heat and developing thunderstorms cells to the west did ultimately put a stop to racing midway through the afternoon schedule, just ahead of the 3V Reps and the semis for the Heavyweight and Lightweight fours.

With more weather expected to tomorrow, racing has been condensed to 8 minute centers and an earlier start (7:30 am). You can check the new schedule on the row2k IRA Resources page.

The casualties of the new schedule: 3Vs that were hoping to make good in the rep–crews were advanced based on the results of the heats–and the two Men’s fours events will go to finals based on the single-file time trial, which is a tough break for all the crews that finished fractions of a second back from a better final, and for those IRA member schools whose only entry is in the fours event.

In the morning though, racing went off without a hitch. The Varsity eights heats delivered wins by the top four seeds—-Cal, Yale, Princeton, and Washington—-but two of the “two-to-advance” races featured hot enough battles for second that they went the distance on a day when the favorites can usually conserve a lot more powder for later rounds.

Cal put up the top time, but was just a second and change ahead of Brown, who put together a cracker of a race to reel in better-seeded Dartmouth and then get past them, while hot on Yale’s heels in the next heat was Northeastern pulling an upset over Stanford.

If you read the ‘tale of the splits’ for the first 500 and first 1000, where every crew was definitely still going full tilt to cement they position, those four heat winners, plus the Harvard and Syracuse, crew which who rounded out the 8 direct qualifiers, were all laying down 1:20-1:21 splits, so the semis should be smoking tomorrow.

The Final four crews in from the reps in the afternoon were Dartmouth, Stanford, Cornell, and Penn.

The Lightweight Men’s Eights put on a similar show: top seed Princeton won heat won in 5:43, with Penn and Cornell in hot pursuit just two seconds behind, and 0.03 seconds or so apart—-and that wasn’t even the most exciting Light Men’s heat.

That one came down next: while Harvard and Navy were solidly in 1st and 2nd, Dartmouth jumped all over the chance to upgrade their Sprints finish, and then a late run earned Yale the last ticket to the Grand Final by just .3 seconds.

The D3 Men’s Heats followed the same pattern: favorite Williams rowed a controlled race in the first heat ahead of a dog fight between Bates and Trinity, in which Bates came through to snatch second, while the second heat featured a real battle for the final spot in the Grand. Wesleyan won that second heat, on the front all the way with Tufts in second, but St, Lawrence, the Liberty League champ pushed WPI all the way to the line and nearly stole the final spot away. WPI held on, but it was clear the crew gave every measure to advance to Saturday’s final.

The D3 Men will race for their championship—-and the Gary Caldwell Trophy—-on Saturday, after the heats for the Lightweight Women and the semis for the heavyweight crews.

Also on tap for tomorrow? Headwinds and, as Yale’s Steve Gladstone pointed out to row2k, we’ve mostly seen tailwind racing this spring: “This is the first headwind event of the year,” he noted. “At least on the East Coast, everything has been crazy fast.” How the extra time that a headwind grants could affect things, and any advantage that wind might grant a heavier crew, may well be another storyline that plays out as the weekend unfolds.

Below are the thoughts from some of the coaches who crews took care of business this morning, all of whom were quick to point out that Day 1 of the IRA settles just about noting–there is plenty of racing left to go.

California’s Scott Frandsen

On the racing and this year’s campaign for Cal:

“It was a good first day of racing. We’ve been building towards this all year, so really good to get that first day under our belts, and with fairly positive results across the board for us.

“The messaging from the beginning of the year has been that we’re not defending anything. This is a completely different year, completely different campaign. The goal all year has been to train towards being competitive, to try to win. That’s the mindset, that we’re on offense, and we’re trying to have our best races, not to defend anything. We’ve been fairly successful with that so far and today was good. Tomorrow will be a bigger step for sure. We’re definitely not looking beyond tomorrow.

“The competitive depth [of the field] has become stronger and stronger, and isn’t that a great statement for men’s rowing. I think the competition through the heats this morning, and the semis tomorrow is going to be really competitive and that’s great for men’s rowing.”

Yale’s Steve Gladstone

On the speed of the Varsity Eight field:

“In all these heats [today], you’re going to be looking at the first 500-600 meters of the race. None of the none of the top crews are going to be plowing their way down for 2000 meter time. It’s as simple as that. And what you have got is some very fast crews and many more fast crews than usual.

“Typically, there are two crews that stand out. Now you’ve really got potentially four, maybe even five, based on the times. So I think the semis tomorrow will be awesome, and all the crews are going to have to lay down a really good race to qualify for the Grand Finals.

“Three of these Eastern crews, Syracuse, Princeton, and Yale, have experienced those wire to wire races. Those were crushing races at the Eastern Sprints. We ended up on the better end of it, but Princeton was not a boat that was broken and Syracuse was in it as well. There was no point in this in the finals at the Eastern Sprints where any one of those crews could say, Okay, we’ve got it. So that experience is there.

“Potentially, it’s an advantage, but when you when you look at the quality of the University of California, and this is not in any way forgetting Washington, but if you look at just the precision and power of that Cal Varsity Eight, it is substantive, and similar to last year.”

Princeton’s Greg Hughes

On looking ahead to the Saturday Semis:

“That was a solid piece for us today. But the cool thing about this race is that it’s a new day tomorrow. It’s a full reset, the scoreboard is clean. It doesn’t really matter [what we did today], we have to go out and race really hard tomorrow. There’s going to be some incredible boats, then you add the parity of the league, and everyone’s within the margin of error. I think tomorrow’s semis will be some of the most exciting racing in our sport.

“It’s great having splits now [on the results], and just looking across those times, it’s exciting. And it shows that when you get really calm and even conditions, just how exciting this racing can be.

“I’m just excited to be a part of it, and that’s always what I feel. When you get to this point of the season, you really start to get tunnel vision about your race. But then you actually pull back a little bit and, holy cow, congrats to these kids. They have actually gotten to a point, to a level, where they are actually contending up at the top, and that’s just exciting. And then, hey, let ’em race!”

Brown’s Paul Cooke

On qualifying directly in the first heat of the Varsity Eight:

“We were looking at eyeing this contest [in the heat] as a pretty big one, so it was really important that the guys came through and stepped up to the pressure and were able to really perform well this morning. We’ve believed we were capable of it all spring, and I think we’ve made progress. We’ve figured out how to lose, and sometimes when you figure out how to lose, you start thinking how to win.

“Sometimes going through some days where things aren’t going that well, you can reengage and start doing what you love doing in a really good way. These athletes have done that pretty well. Of course, it’s early, and just the beginning of the regatta so we don’t know how it’s going to unfold. But this morning was a good start.”

Northeastern’s Alex Perkins

On qualifying directly in the second heat of the Varsity Eight:

“Our heat was a really competitive race across the board, just like all the heats. We’ve all known there’s a lot of really good eights this year and I was happy to see the guys come away with that result in the morning, moving through to the AB semi.”

“We know we’re going to have a big challenge on our hands tomorrow and we’re looking forward to that. The guys are excited. We’re locked in to looking at the rest of the weekend.”

“Sometimes [skipping the rep] does play into things, but with the depth of the field this year, I think it will play into it less than normal. There’s a lot of really good teams rowing the reps this afternoon that I expect to see going after it tomorrow. But, giving the guys a chance to get it done on the course in the morning today, and then be able to get ready for the semis is a big thing and we’re looking forward to it.”

Lightweights: Penn’s Colin Farrell

On how to race a heat in the very competitive lightweight field:

“Today was more of what we’ve seen all year, which has been super competitive, and it feels like eight teams came here that could win. That is a really fun feeling and both heats had results that were down to hundredeths. It’s very emblematic of what our league produces.

“You have to take this regatta one race at a time. We don’t look beyond the heat, that’s part of it being really close. You can’t look past any one race and assume that any specific outcome is going to happen, so we go into the heats feeling like it’s got to be a full effort and we have to go 2000 meters.”

“You can’t presume that you’re even going to advance. The other crews are so high quality and we feel like if we don’t have a good one, we’re going to get bumped. So it’s really one at a time, then you take what happened in the heat and try to see how you can make it even better for the final.”

Lightweights: Princeton’s Marty Crotty

On the 1st Varsity Eight’s race:

“The varsity has been gelling really well in practice the last couple of weeks, and I’ve just been trying to keep them hungry. We got some rest after Sprints, then we had a week of really hard work, and now a week of rest coming into this. It was a good good cycle. I think we learned some things and we improved some things. I think we picked up speed, and you have to pick up speed [for the IRA] or else you’re going to be out the back.”

“We were able to get a full Sunday night through Saturday afternoon week of work in [after Sprints] before we went into taper mode. And some of these bursts, and some of these starting 1000s that you do on Monday, three or four days out, were just electric, so we’re really excited to see if they can reproduce that on Sunday.”

On the 2v, which won the race for lanes in first race of the day:

“It was good to get the day started with the 2VL. They had a solid piece. I think they showed that they’re pretty sound, with a really good start, just to be with everybody. Then they did what they’ve been doing all year, rowing a very good middle 1000 and they just inch away. Their base speed is consistent and solid and it eats away at a field little by little, before you know it, they have six seats or a length. Good to get the day started that way.

D3: Williams’ Marc Mandel

On winning the first heat of the D3 Varsity Eight heat and the 2V eight’s race for lanes:

“With the varsity eight racing a heat with 3 of 4 to advance, and the 2nd eight racing with all boats advancing, there is definitely the question of how to approach the races today.”

“With three weeks since our last race and the potential for windy conditions tomorrow, we did want to put out a good effort. It’s clear the field has tightened since our conference championships, and tomorrow should provide for some great racing.”

D3: Wesleyan’s Phil Carney

On winning the second heat of the D3 Varsity Eight, in Wesleyan’s first D3 Championships appearance:

“We’ve had about three weeks since we’ve had classes and a week since graduation, so we’ve just had a lot of opportunity to row, and that changes things a lot for us. They’ve improved a lot in the last three weeks. With the people that we’re racing, most of whom we’ve seen multiple times at this point, we all have a pretty good sense of who’s doing what, and I just think we’re getting better. We’re getting better fairly quickly. It’s a very young boat of guys, and so they’re improving quite a lot.”

“This Championship’s been great for D3 Men’s rowing. We’ve sitting on the sidelines for however many years that our women’s team has been very successful and going to the NCAA quite a lot. So our season is ending and their season is going another week, two and a half weeks, or three weeks even, sometimes, and that’s extra training time and more competition. It just gives the kids the opportunity to get better.

“So that’s been that’s been a really big thing. Additionally, within an athletic department, ours in particular, it just brings a lot of credibility to your efforts at the end of the season. because they know it’s a division three championship, and it’s very similar to what’s happening for the other sports.”

D3: Bates’ Peter Steenstra

On taking second in the 1V heat and advancing to the Grand Final:

“Today was won of those races where you go into the race saying first and foremost, don’t disrespect anyone that’s in the race. Make sure you are paying attention to all of the competition. You don’t know who they are, you don’t know what they can do. Let’s make sure we take care of that business in the first 500 meters. But then once you get into the middle of the race, now we’re going to really lay this down.

“Williams is in another place right now, and it’d be foolish for us to think otherwise. But we knew that we could have a real good piece with Trinity and we knew that that would be worth extending ourselves to get come out on top for that one, and the guys really committed to it and then made it happen.”

On racing familiar New England D3 foes here at the IRA:

“I don’t need to get them up for any of these competitions. Vengeance has built in. They’ve seen the same schools over and over again, and sometimes have very different results from one week to the next. Let’s face it, it’s really hard to go to back to back major regattas, the way we do our New England Championship straight into the NIRC, which is only six days later in a year like this.

“That’s a tough thing, a tough turnaround to have. I don’t think we did a very good job at it this year. That NIRC result, throughout all the Bates boats, wasn’t really our best. So we’re lucky to have all these other opportunities, the women at NCAA’s and the men here. So we’re happy to have those opportunities again, and that’s why I don’t need to get them up for it because they’re already so excited to make up for whatever happened the last time.”

Notes from the Course

Tent Check – We reported in with the mayor of tent town upon arrival, and he assured us all was well, but it turns out the UW flag was upside down until lunch time, when it was set right by some intrepid Husky parents who remembered to bring extra zip ties. Also, while the Wisco tent was dutifully kicking out the “Jump Around” jams, no one was jumping just yet…but that’s okay: we are definitely not in the fourth quarter of the regatta just yet.

Reps Still Matter – So the 3Vs lost their reps to the chance of thunderstorms, and the NCAA D1 crews ran their whole regatta with no reps at all, so do they still matter? They sure do if you are the Cornell 1V, who went from fourth place in the morning to winning their rep over the Wisconsin crew that beat them at Sprints, so there’s at least a few places who might just think the reps shouldn’t go anywhere.

Battle on the Wooder – we did have one all Philly Rep in the 2V: LaSalle, Penn, Drexel. Guy in one of the boats yelled out at the start, “Hey, where’s Temple and St. Joes?”