World Cup II Preview: 5 TRC HP athletes set to race
Five Texas athletes wrapped up training camp in Erba, Italy and are set to race in Varese for World Cup II this weekend. See below for how to watch! Plus, an update from our rowers back home.
Jasper, Kara, Jimmy, Sophia, and Zach enjoying a post-training snack!
Training camp in Erba, Italy
Way back on May 28th, five athletes plus our coach, Peter, flew from Texas to Italy to start a three-week preparation camp ahead of World Cup II. We spent the past three weeks on Lake Pusiano in Erba, Italy (a bit north of Milan) getting many, many miles in! We joined the rest of the US team on this camp, and we have been able to train side by side with different boat classes, learn from other athletes and coaches, and explore the town (pictured above) in our few moments of rest.
World Cup II Race Preview
World Cup II starts Friday, June 16, and racing finishes up on Sunday, June 18 in Varese, Italy. The USA has entered 19 boats across 13 events.
Five TRC HP athletes will be representing the USA this weekend across the W1x, W2x, W4x, and LM2x!
Women’s Single
Kara Kohler starts off another campaign in the W1x this weekend! She will face off against 19 other boats, and she starts off this regatta seeded 6th by World Rowing (based off of past results). Kara finished last year’s World Championships 13th overall after a tough draw in the heats and repechages. This year, she has been finding some good speed, and she aims to get back in the A-final and be in the hunt for the medals again!
The top seeded women in this event represent Australia, Spain, and Germany. Tara Rigney of Australia finished with a bronze medal in the W1x at last year’s World’s; Virginia Dias Rivas of Spain won the W1x at World Cup 1 and finished 6th at the European Championships this year; and Alexandra Foester finished 7th at last year’s World’s.
Women’s Double and Quad
Sophia Vitas will double up this weekend, racing BOTH the W2x and W4x!
In the W2x, Sophia returns to row with Kristi Wagner — this duo returns after earning 5th at the 2022 World Championships together. They enter this regatta seeded first overall, and they’ll be racing 12 other crews, including another USA double. Seeded behind them are France and Germany. The French double recently finished 4th overall at the European Championships, and the Germans were right behind them in 5th.
And just for fun (and another shot at the podium!), Sophia and Kristi will be racing the W4x this weekend as well! They’ll be joined by Emily Kalfelz and Lauren O’Connor, (who are also racing the W2x as USA2).
This women’s sculling group has been switching between different 2x and 4x lineups since the beginning of May at Selection Camp in Chula Vista. With some very promising times in training, they are excited to give both of these boat classes a go!
Lightweight Men’s Double
The USA has two LM2x entries at this World Cup, and TRC HP athletes make up 3 of those 4 seats!
USA1 is comprised of Jimmy McCullough and Sam Melvin; they are the selected LM2x out of this year’s Selection Camp I. Jimmy and Sam have both raced the lightweight single internationally, but this will be their debut in the double! Jimmy finished 10th in the LM1x at last year’s World Cup II and 17th at the World Champs. Sam raced in the Under-23 LM4x in 2018, and he won the Under-23 LM1x in 2019 at the U23 World Championships! They will look to combine these experiences into a strong debut in the Olympic boat class. Some serious motivation will be beating their training partners…
Jasper Liu and Zach Heese are racing this weekend as USA2. Though they were not selected as the top boat after a tight selection process, Zach and Jasper return to race together for a third year. They are seeded 6th in the event based off of their results from last year, so will look to maintain or beat that seed by finishing in the A-final!
The LM2x field is about half of the size that was at the World Championships, with 14 entries representing 11 countries. Three boats from last year’s A-final are entered (Italy, Switzerland, and France) and two from the B-final (Germany and Belgium). Both LM2x’s aim to get in the A-final and beat some of the B-final crews from last year — a top-4 finish would show that we are on a good track for Olympic qualification!
How to Follow
The event page is here.
Live race tracker and LIVE audio will be available for ALL races on www.worldrowing.com.
LIVE video streaming will be available on the World Rowing website on Saturday, 17 June from 10:30 CET until 13:35 CET, from 15:20 to 16:50 CET and on Sunday, 18 June from 10:00 to 14:50 CET. The video streaming will start 5 minutes before the first race.
Provisional Schedule
*All times CET (+6 hrs to East Coast, +7 hours to Texas)
**official schedule will be revised after the Draw, happening today at 3pm CET
Friday, June 16th - Heats and Reps
11:10a - W2x heats
12:25p - W1x heats
1:40p - LM2x heats
1:55p - W4x heats
4:30p - W2x repechages*
5:10p - W1x repechages*
6:00p - LM2x repechages*
*if necessary
Saturday, June 17th - Semifinals
12:05p - W2x semifinals
12:25p - W1x semifinals
1:15p - LM2x semifinals
1:25p - W4x repechage*
Sunday, June 18th - A and B Finals
9:05a - W2x final B
9:25a - W1x final B
9:40a - LM2x final B
9:45a - W4x final B
11:23a - W2x final A
12:08p - LM2x final A
1:24p - W4x final A
2:26p - W1x final A
Meanwhile, back in the States:
Kevin and Dom have migrated north for the past few weeks to prepare for Selection Camp II, which starts June 26 in Princeton! In the photo above, they are joined by Webster Thompson, Cedar Cunningham, and Mike Herman, who row for Penn AC. We’d like to extend a huge THANK YOU to the coaches and rowers in Philadelphia that have made it possible for these two to continue training well!
JP has been holding down the fort back in Austin, training with some competition from the combative Masters group at TRC! He is back at work in the single, preparing for World Championship Trials at the end of July.
