Texas goes 3 for 3 at NSR II

*Zach and Jasper in the Lightweight Men's Double final on Tuesday. Photo by Row2k*

Friday morning brought grins to the faces of TRC HP’s athletes, and especially to our coach, Peter.

The most stressful part of a coach’s job is the time between when a crew launches to warm up and when they cross the finish line. In that time, the coach’s job is over — nothing they say or do can influence the result any more. The coach can only consider everything that they lead the team through in the lead up to the race. Fortunately, after the finish line horns sounded this week, Peter could breathe a huge sigh of relief — he had done enough.

TRC High Performance boats won all three events that we entered this week: Men’s 2x, Women’s 2x, and Lightweight Men’s 2x. The lightweights also put up a good performance in the open weight event this week, with Zach and Jasper finishing 4th, ahead of a California and Penn AC/Vesper boat in the final, and Jimmy partnering up with Riverside athlete Alex Twist just one week before and still coming in 2nd in the B final for 8th overall.

With these wins, TRC HP will be sending all seven athletes — three doubles, plus Jimmy in the lightweight men’s single — to World Cup II in Poznan, Poland from June 17-19.

Racing Recap

Men’s 2x

Kevin Cardno and JP Kirkegaard took home the top spot in the men’s double this week. Though they won Olympic Trials in 2021 together, they anticipated this year’s field to be tougher competition. Ben Davidson, who will be racing the 1x at the World Cup this June, was racing in a combination for California, while the second and third place finishers in the 1x from NSR 1 teamed up to race a double as well for Craftsbury/Vesper.

Kevin and JP

In the final, though, experience prevailed. Right from the start, Kevin and JP jumped out to a lead. In training the past few weeks, they started honing in on a good, strong, repeatable rhythm. The duo found that right away, and they would lead by at least a length throughout the entire race, with the Craftsbury/Vesper boat only pushing back into them in the closing strokes. Crossing the line 2 seconds ahead of second place, Kevin let out a fierce yell of excitement and accomplishment.

In the lightweight combination, Zach and Jasper flew off the line at 55 strokes per minute, pushing themselves fighting for third place with two other boats off the start. Coming into this race, expecting the heavyweight boats to be stronger, the lightweights planned to keep the foot to the floor no matter what, wearing down the other boats with a quick, precise rhythm. Through the middle of the race, they hung one length back on the second California boat for most of the race. When that boat started to crack with 300 meters to go, Zach and Jasper turned the screw just a little bit more, and ended up finishing 0.3 seconds ahead.

After a tough semifinal draw on Thursday, Jimmy and Alex found themselves in the B final on Friday. Rowing a double in a new combination is tough — everything must be matched up perfectly, which is hard to find right away with a new partner. But throughout the week, this combination worked at it tirelessly, and started to find the sweet spot in the final. In the closest race of the day, Jimmy and Alex found themselves down heading into halfway, but kept the press on. The extra practices this week paid off in the final 500, where they hit their stride and walked back into second place, 1.6 seconds off of first.

Lightweight Men’s 2x

Zach and Jasper after the M2x final on Friday

Zach and Jasper “raced” the Lightweight 2x final on Tuesday with no competition. Making weight, rowing down the course successfully, and not getting disqualified earned them a bid to World Cup II. While there were some other lightweights racing in the open events this week, the lack of lightweight depth is apparent on both the men’s and women’s sides.

Women’s 2x

The women’s event gave everyone the biggest surprise of the regatta — a Whitemarsh Boat Club double comprised of two young lightweights won the time trial on Tuesday, edging out the TRC HP boat of Sophia Vitas and Kara Kohler by 0.9 seconds.

Unlike our other TRC doubles, this was Kara and Sophia’s first time racing in a boat together. Throughout the week, they had to figure out how to relax, respond to pressure, and find speed together when it mattered. They learned more about how to race together each day, and took those lessons into the final.

Towards the back of the pack after the first 500, they settled into their base pace, taking long and strong strokes, and slowly but surely the Texas women worked their way back through the field into second place. The Whitemarsh boat still had a slim lead heading into the last 250 meters, but horsepower won out in the end. When they needed to, the pair turned it on to get ahead by the finish line.

Sophia and Kara after their win in the W2x

Thoughts on the Racing

After NSR I, raced in singles, the athletes turned to pairs and doubles for racing this week in New Jersey. These two-person boat classes are arguably the hardest to race. All rowers have their own idiosyncrasies and power profiles; in a single, these don’t matter, there can be many styles that make the boat move fast; and in a four- or eight-person shell, the quirks of one person can slide by unnoticed. However, in the double and the pair, the two athletes must be totally in sync. There is nowhere to hide — if the bodies aren’t moving and pushing together, it will be immediately apparent.

Good double combinations can be born (there are a disproportionate number of twins and siblings racing the 2- and 2x!) or they can develop over hundreds of thousands of strokes. The effect of experience together was glaringly apparent this week. The winners of the women’s pair rowed together in the USA Olympic W4- last year, and the returning winners of the doubles at 2021 Olympic Trials, Kevin/JP and Zach/Jasper, came out on top of their events. One way that Texas Rowing Center - High Performance is helping the US build better results is by maintaining a culture where the athletes want to stay and want to work together.

While this week’s racing was a very important hurdle for us to overcome, we will hit the ground running next week back home in Austin. As Kevin related to Row2k, “[The win] is hopefully just the first step. Ideally we need to start being more and more competitive internationally. Getting to go race internationally is the first step in that. I respect all of the athletes here racing this week, but winning NSR2 is not the only hurdle we need to clear to go to Paris."

It was a rainy week at Mercer

Up next: World Cup II and Henley

After the next month of training in Austin, all seven TRC HP athletes will head to Poznan, Poland to race World Cup II. In the doubles events, selection to this year’s World Championship team is on the line — an A-final finish would secure National Team roster spots. Otherwise, the events head to a Trials event in August.

After the World Cup, all boats will head to Varese, Italy, for a weeklong training camp with the rest of the USA team. This will give us a great chance to have a very focused week. For the athletes, training camps make the mundane training feel different. Each day, it feels like “we are here for a purpose, so we are going to make the most of it,” and we can skip the everyday chores and distractions at home.

To finish up the European trip, the team was invited to join other USRowing athletes at Henley Royal Regatta from June 28 through July 3. Kara and Sophia will definitely be there, racing in singles. The decision for the men is still up in the air due to work and other obligations.