TRC HP makes a statement in program debut
1st and 2nd out of 30 competitors in the Women’s 1x.
1st, 2nd, and 4th out of 12 competitors in the Lightweight Men’s 1x.
6th, 7th, and 23rd in the deepest field of the event, the Men’s 1x, with 37 entries.
Texas Rowing Center founded a high performance program, TRC HP, last fall. The first training center of its kind in Texas, TRC HP attracted some of the top coaching and athletic talent in the country. After our first winter of training together, National Selection Regatta 1 was the first opportunity we had to race, see how the training was going, and see where we stand relative to the other American programs.
Right from the beginning of the week, the results were promising.
Sophia Vitas last raced the 1x at Olympic Trials in February of 2021, narrowly missing out on making the final. With no expectations coming into the week of racing, she set the fastest time of the day, besting Kara Kohler, her teammate at TRC and Olympic single sculler, by one second.
Those two performances set the tone for the rest of the week for TRC.
Sophia and Kara kept the top two spots throughout the week. They each won their respective semifinals by over five seconds, setting up a battle in the middle lanes in the final.
Kara, who has been the top American single sculler in the US since 2018, put her foot down in the final, besting Sophia by 4 seconds. The pair finished 1st and 2nd, another couple seconds and stretch of open water in front of the third place finisher, Kristi Wagner.
Kara leading the women’s final
On the men’s side, Kevin Cardno kept the momentum going for Texas in the Time Trial by finishing second. JP Kirkegaard, his doubles partner from 2021, crossed the line in 9th, and Mark Couwenhoven, who will be joining TRC this summer, was seven seconds back from JP, coming in 18th.
JP and Mark went to the repechages, or second chance races, on Wednesday, while Kevin got a rest day before the semifinals. Mark ended up 5th in his repechage, with a time that would send him to the D-final. JP won his repechage, which earned him a spot in the A/B semifinal.
In the same semifinal with three boats to advance, JP and Kevin were battling it out with athletes from Craftsbury, Vesper, California, and San Diego. On a characteristically windy day in Sarasota, Kevin was leading the race until the last quarter, where his oar bounced off a wave and out of his hand. After coming to a full stop, he charged back but could not make up the ground to third place. Two seconds short, his fourth place finish sent him to the B-final, which he won after leading from wire-to-wire. In the semifinal, JP was in a battle for third the whole way, and ended up coming through in the last 500 to take second, advancing to the A-final. He finished sixth on Friday.
Kevin after the misadventure in the semifinal
Zach Heese continued TRC’s dominance this week in the Lightweight Men’s 1x. He won the time trial, semifinal, and final, leaving no doubt about who is the fastest lightweight in the US right now. Jasper Liu was right behind him the whole way, finishing second in the time trial, winning his respective semifinal, and finishing six seconds behind Zach in the final for a second place finish.
Jimmy McCullough hoped to make it a clean podium sweep for TRC on the lightweight men’s side. The youngest member of TRC HP, just 25, he built on experience throughout the regatta. Sixth in the time trial, he put in a cheeky push at the end of his semifinal to finish second, and missed out on the podium in the final, finishing fourth overall by just 0.3 seconds.
Zach leading Jasper headed into the final 250
The athletes will all turn their eyes to NSR 2, which will be raced in doubles during the first week of May, in Princeton, NJ.
Review and Thoughts
Some context: The US did not win any medals in rowing, men’s or women’s, at the Tokyo Olympics, and has not won a men’s sculling medal in decades. So, while we are satisfied seeing that we are at or near the top of that field, it doesn’t mean too much in our quest to earn medals at the World Championships and Olympics.
That being said, our results from this past week give us confidence in the training that we have been doing, and they give us optimism for what lies ahead. We will be enthusiastic about doing endless hours on Lady Bird Lake, confident that the time we are putting in will pay off with results down the road.
The training is what drives results. Without putting in the hours, your body won’t adapt, you won’t learn and memorize new skills, and you won’t be ready on race day. Everyone knows that. The challenge on this level is how much you can train and how well you can train. TRC HP elevates both of those.
What makes TRC HP special is the culture. Between our coach and our athletes, everyone is there for the right reasons. As Kara describes so well, we are a “big, chaotic family”. It is fun to come to practice every day and see your friends, who are pushing themselves and pushing you. There is a great level of respect between each athlete and the coach. You are motivated to work harder because you want to make your teammates in the boat next to you faster, not because you will get punished if you don’t.
This culture extends to the athletes’ friends, family, and the entire Texas Rowing Center community. When we, the athletes, feel supported, we can fully devote ourselves to our goals. The enthusiasm that we have felt around TRC is incredible, and we feel proud to represent and wear the same uniforms as everyone else at TRC. This past week, our athletes did not have to spend a dime on flights, cars, housing, food, or equipment. One TRC member even leant us his personal Empacher single to use at the regatta so that we could have the fastest boats possible. We can’t overstate how important this support is to our results - THANK YOU!
