World Cup II recap - a weekend of firsts

It was a weekend full of firsts for the TRC HP athletes and for Peter. First time breaking 7 minutes in the single for Jimmy; first time making an A-final for the LM2x; first international medal for Sophia; and the first medal-winning boat for our coach, Peter.

Part of the USA’s strong showing at World Cup II, where Americans earned 7 medals across the 12 events we entered, TRC HP boats put down performances that showed what we are doing in Texas is working! The three men’s boats raced at World Cup II in 2021, so we can compare our results to last year to track our progress.

Race Recap

W2x - Sophia Vitas and Kara Kohler

3rd out of 15

Sophia, Peter, and Kara after their final

Kara and Sophia switched up everything this year when they moved to Austin — a new city, a new coach, and a new boat class. This weekend was an opportunity to see how that all played out on the big stage.

Thanks to the draw for the heats and semifinals, the Texas duo didn’t have to face the favored Dutch or Irish crews until the final. Kara and Sophia won each of those preliminary races without too much fuss, and felt like they had something saved for the final. On Sunday, however, they found themselves in fourth heading into the last 500. Using all two thousand meters of the course, they narrowly edged their bow ahead of the Chinese to take the bronze medal — Sophia’s first hardware.

LM1x - Jimmy McCullough

10th out of 16 boats (2021: 14th)

Jimmy taking a look over at Gary O'Donovan

Jimmy had the toughest schedule this weekend. Since the LM1x is not an Olympic boat class, the finals were held on Saturday afternoon. That meant that he had four races (his heat, repechage, semifinal, and final) all in the span of 31 hours. He didn’t save anything in the heat, though. With two boats to advance straight to the semifinals, skipping the reps, he pushed it hard to the line and narrowly missed out on second place. Gary O’Donovan, a silver medallist from Rio 2016, sprinted through to just pip Jimmy at the line.

A solid repechage saw Jim avoid the C final, but he didn’t have much juice left in the A/B semifinal, taking it down after 1500 meters when he realized that he would not advance to the A final and saving some energy for the afternoon. In the B final, Jimmy laid down the fastest time he’s ever done in a 1x (6:54.8), sprinting through O’Donovan to get revenge and finish 4th (10th overall).

LM2x - Zach Heese and Jasper Liu

5th out of 16 (2021: 9th)

Crossing the line on Sunday

The LM2x event this week had many new faces, and it seemed like it could be anyone’s game. In the heat, Zach and Jasper found themselves down off the start, and used the whole course to climb back into second place, advancing straight to the semifinals on Saturday. There, the theme was the same. With three to advance, the USA boat started off in fifth and didn’t take the third place spot until the last 500, walking through Japan this time and advancing to the A-final — achieving the goal of the regatta.

In the final, Zach and Jasper tried to keep the momentum going, capitalizing on the chance to finish as high as possible. Riding in fifth place most of the way and battling the crosswind out in lane 1, they could not move back on these top crews, finishing in fifth, 3.5 seconds behind the bronze medalists from Switzerland.

M2x - Kevin Cardno and JP Kirkegaard

8th out of 15 (2021: 14th)

Cardno and Kirkegaard

Kevin and JP caught the unlucky end of the draw this weekend. They finished third in the heat, avoiding the reps and advancing to the A/B semifinal, but that heat included three boats that eventually ended up on the podium. They viewed this as an opportunity to prove themselves — they thought they had the speed to pull off a top-3 finish on a good day. Heading towards the halfway mark, still with contact with the Polish, we were seeing glimpses of their top speed. Unfortunately, a few errors with the bladework cost them some momentum, and sitting in the wake of the world-record-holding Croatians made for a bumpy ride to the finish.

In the B final, they set their sights on beating the other US boat, who they previously faced at NSR 2, and going out with a win. They took the lead in the third 500 and kept their foot on the pedal, but couldn’t hold off the charging Bulgarians, who took it up to 50 strokes per minute to edge out the USA by 0.13 seconds.

What does it mean?

For the W2x and LM2x, a top-6 finish qualifies them to be the US representatives at World Championships this fall, avoiding another trials race. The lightweights will definitely accept this, but the women will be testing different lineups next week at Henley Royal Regatta (more below). For Kevin and JP, they will either have to go through a second trials event in August for the M2x or attend a team camp to compete for seats in a M4x. They will be racing at Henley in the 4x to see how that combination might play out!

Zooming out, these results show that we are on the right track with our training in Texas! We saw improvement from the three men’s boats that raced this same regatta last year, plus a very strong start for our new women’s crew. Building a program like this takes constant work, but we are more confident than ever that we have a winning formula.

This is also Peter’s first World Cup medal win as a coach! Filling many roles for us besides just coaching rowing, seeing the positive results at this regatta was extra special for him.