Final from Georgia
It's been a busy, golden weekend here in Gainesville, Georgia, and the ACRA National Championships.
I'm currently updating from the lobby of the hotel, preparing to head off to the incredibly busy - so we've been told - Atlanta airport for our flight home.
First let me say that it's a brilliant idea to stay one day longer than the competition. Rather than throwing our boats onto the UC Davis trailer, sprinting back to the hotel, showering, and then speeding into Atlanta, we came back, relaxed, had a good dinner, and a solid nights sleep.
Intelligent.
A quick recap of the weekend.
Women's Novice Four: The weekend opened with a heart attack thanks to a lack of communication, and misidentification. We were scheduled to race in Heat 1. Apparently one of the boats in the heat did not leave the starting dock so the entire flight was called back - this is acceptable under US Rowing rules, and understandable.
To try and keep the regatta on schedule, the officials sent Heat 2 while they realigned the first heat - also completely understandable. However, the race announcer continued to call Heat 2 as Heat 1. This meant that several coaches who had boats in Heat 2, missed watching their crews because they weren't aware of the switch. This also meant that yours truly was wondering what happened to the boat.
This confusion was further compounded by the announcer calling Heat 2 lane assignments, leaving me to wonder, "Where the hell is my boat?" I spent the better part of the race speaking with officials, and volunteers, and barely made it out to the race course to watch my boat come through.
The Grand Valley State, and William & Mary coaches and I had a good laugh about this - what else can you do - and promised that if the results did not reflect what we'd seen, we'd go together to assist each other. Thankfully everything turned rosy and the flights were correct.
Since they won their heat, the four drew one of the center lanes for the final yesterday, and launched without any issues. From there it was a nail biting hour wait before the race. The boat got out strong, jumped to an early lead, along with Orange Coast College, and had open water by the 1000 meters over OCC, with both crews having open water over the field.
From there, the boat continued to push, and crossed the finish line five seconds ahead of an excellent OCC boat, claiming the national championship, the first in the history of the Oregon program.
Unfortunately they weren't able to go to the awards dock because we split the shell with the varsity four, but we were able to collect the medals, and the plaque.
The Oregon women had a solid weekend overall, placing 1st in the N4, 3rd in the 2-, and 5th in the V4 to earn the overall women's small boats trophy.
And so the 2016 season closes the way that we'd hoped. The novice four collected the WIRA championship to go along with their ACRA title, completing an incredible run of races. They finished the season winning both races at each regatta - heat and final - by comfortable margins, and are looking forward to a well earned summer break, as well as the 2017 season.
I'm currently updating from the lobby of the hotel, preparing to head off to the incredibly busy - so we've been told - Atlanta airport for our flight home.
First let me say that it's a brilliant idea to stay one day longer than the competition. Rather than throwing our boats onto the UC Davis trailer, sprinting back to the hotel, showering, and then speeding into Atlanta, we came back, relaxed, had a good dinner, and a solid nights sleep.
Intelligent.
A quick recap of the weekend.
Women's Novice Four: The weekend opened with a heart attack thanks to a lack of communication, and misidentification. We were scheduled to race in Heat 1. Apparently one of the boats in the heat did not leave the starting dock so the entire flight was called back - this is acceptable under US Rowing rules, and understandable.
To try and keep the regatta on schedule, the officials sent Heat 2 while they realigned the first heat - also completely understandable. However, the race announcer continued to call Heat 2 as Heat 1. This meant that several coaches who had boats in Heat 2, missed watching their crews because they weren't aware of the switch. This also meant that yours truly was wondering what happened to the boat.
This confusion was further compounded by the announcer calling Heat 2 lane assignments, leaving me to wonder, "Where the hell is my boat?" I spent the better part of the race speaking with officials, and volunteers, and barely made it out to the race course to watch my boat come through.
The Grand Valley State, and William & Mary coaches and I had a good laugh about this - what else can you do - and promised that if the results did not reflect what we'd seen, we'd go together to assist each other. Thankfully everything turned rosy and the flights were correct.
Since they won their heat, the four drew one of the center lanes for the final yesterday, and launched without any issues. From there it was a nail biting hour wait before the race. The boat got out strong, jumped to an early lead, along with Orange Coast College, and had open water by the 1000 meters over OCC, with both crews having open water over the field.
From there, the boat continued to push, and crossed the finish line five seconds ahead of an excellent OCC boat, claiming the national championship, the first in the history of the Oregon program.
Unfortunately they weren't able to go to the awards dock because we split the shell with the varsity four, but we were able to collect the medals, and the plaque.
The Oregon women had a solid weekend overall, placing 1st in the N4, 3rd in the 2-, and 5th in the V4 to earn the overall women's small boats trophy.
And so the 2016 season closes the way that we'd hoped. The novice four collected the WIRA championship to go along with their ACRA title, completing an incredible run of races. They finished the season winning both races at each regatta - heat and final - by comfortable margins, and are looking forward to a well earned summer break, as well as the 2017 season.
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