A Battle in the Rain.

As most East Coast Coaches donned rain slicks and knee high boots to muck through the Ankle deep muck of the Cooper, and Carnegie, Buffalo paraded a deep squad of Varsity women down the course at the Knecht, Harvard beat Brown in the Basin, Yale HW Men beat Dartmouth in New Haven, the Harvard lights trounced Dartmouth sweeping the Biglin Bowl and the Yale and Penn Varsity 150's bested Columbia in New York.

Racing is now in full effect as national team hopefulls took to Mercer Lake for the first installation of their Spring racing series in the form of the Spring Speed Order. Andy Quinn, of Undine Barge Club and Rutgers University won the men's light single in a time of 7:25.953 followed in short order by USRowing's Tom Paradiso, GMS's Jonathan Winter, and USRowing/Malta's Shane Madden. Pocock's Keneth Mcmahon and Vesper's Dan Scholz rounded out the "A" final.

The Lightweight women's single was won by Abby Broughton and followed by Meghan Sarbanis and Kristin Hedstrom.

In Michelle Guerette's absense Margot Shumway won the women's 1x in 7:57.

Who's the tops?

"Phew, those are some nasty ladies" said one spectator last weekend who watched Michigan unravel #2 Brown and #8 Princeton in Princeton to win their opener in style. They rolled on this week to capture the Jessop-Whittier Cup for winning the San Diego Crew Classic, besting most of the country's top 10 in just 2 weeks of racing. UW, USC, Wisco,OSU, WSU, Princeton, Brown and Oregon have now all fallen to the Wolverines but they will have to revisit most these battles in the coming weeks to weather a tough dual season. Coach Mark Rothstein, who has been at U of M since the Club days has his girls tuned up for what looks like a signature season. They will certainly have to contend with the likes of Yale, Michigan State, and Stanford for the National Title.

Meanwhile the deck has been reshuffled for the lightweight men and it is anyone's guess who will be the IRA Champion this year. Navy, after landing on the podium last year at the IRA has now lost to Yale and Princeton in consecutive weeks, and Yale surprisingly fell to Georgetown last weekend in New Haven, something few could have anticipated. In fact Georgetown does look like an entirely different group and their 2008 Freshman class; who place 2nd at Eastern Sprints last year, have already begun to contribute. They pulled double duty last Saturday piecing in New Haven, defeating Yale and then falling to Harvard in Princeton. Meanwhile, the lost lambs of Delaware who's Eastern Sprints Invitation seems to have gotten lost in the mail nearly nipped Dartmouth in Worcester, loosing to them by just .2 of a second. Under new Head Lightweight Coach, Joe Federici, the Delaware lightweights have shown a spark of old form, but at present it seems that "the man" has in fact kept them down and the Blue Hens may not get an opportunity to match up against the best of the best at Eastern Sprints or the IRA.

If we learned anything from last year's lightweight dual season, it's that trying predict the outcome of the Eastern Sprints or the IRA is virtually impossible so we simply won't try here. Though this could shape up to be one of the most dramatic seasons in recent memory.

Mike Teti's California Bears have won this year's Copley Cup at the San Diego Crew Classic edging UW and Harvard by just 2 seconds. Stanford, Brown, and Princeton rounded out the Grand Final. This weekend Brown will again face Harvard, Columbia will battle Princeton and Penn for the Child's Cup, and Northeastern will battle Tom Bohrer's Terriers for the Arlett Cup. UW will revist their battle vs. Stanford on April 17th.

This year's collegiate rowing season is providing more drama than last season's Bachelor and its only going to get hotter from here.

Greatest Races Week: 33

A veritable who's who of women's single scullers, many of these same women would continue to battle on for over a decade of succesful elite rowing. Truely a testament to determination, patience, and mental toughness, the three medal winners at this World Championships would all get their day in the sun as Olympic Champion.

Karsten, already a former Olympic Champion would win another in 2000, Rutschow would win in dominating fashion in 2004 and Neykova, would finally top the Olympic podium in 2008 as she held of American Michelle Guerrette.

What an incredible accomplishment for these women to maintain such an elite level for such a sustained period of time.

Spring Forward Don't Fall Back.

G-Town, St. Joes, and Loyola will travel to participate in the 10th annual Jesuit invite and Florida Tech and Rollins will both host their respective regattas in Florida this weekend. Manny Flick 2 will stroll down the Schuylkill and dual racing will begin to swing into full effect as Columbia HW face off against Florida Tech in Florida, Oregon State Vs. the Zags in Spokane and the women of George Mason Will face off against GW on the Occaquan.

I for one am looking forward to Columbia's debut and G-Town's light men and women.

St. Augustine will hopefully get seeded against Moorestown again in the V8+ Flick #2, an entertaining first match up, along with Roman Vs. Malvern in the Men's 4x and Conestoga vs. Episcopal in the Women's V4x.

It all begins at the beginning...

Manny Flick One is in the books and God bless scholastic rowing. It's amazing to see the sophisticated timing and starting systems of Olympic rowing, to hear about boats with weighted ends to reduce pitch, have Asian children swimming under boats to pull weeds off of fins, and view a roaming camera that gets incredible scanning angles of boats from all directions. But there is something to be said for floating starts, boats in a melee all over the race course and the organized pandemonium that is scholastic rowing.

Buoyed or not, Empacher or 15 year old Kaschper, all high school rowing is mitigated by the same basic pillars: try not to crab off the start, if you point the toe to the left the boat will go to the left or (right hand forward and boat goes to the right) and for gods sake don't hit anything. Although coaches around the country are pulling their hair out and taking their blood pressure meds to get boats in some semblance of racing shape before their regional championship my advice to all coaches is to step back, squeeze your stress balls a little harder, and do your best to enjoy the process. If you're an elite or collegiate athlete and have already squeezed all the sand out of your stress balls worrying about boatings for your next race or invitations to train with the National Team, I suggest you head down to your closest High School Race and remember why the sport is so much fun.

Greatest Races Week 32

In 1984 Paul Enquist and Brad Lewis became a big part of American Rowing History winning olympic gold. Brad wrote about his exploits in "Assault on Lake Casistas" and a tattered, outlined, and notated copy can be found on nearly every American Rower's bookshelf. But they were certainly not the only story at this Olympiad. The U.S. took home one of the most impressive medal hulls in recent history claiming, 2 golds (Men's 2x and Women's 8+), 5 silver (M4+, M4-, M8+, W1x, and W 4x) and 1 bronze (M2+). A heroic result for the American team. Above is one of the most incredible races of the bunch as the Men's 4+ nearly walked through legend, Steven Redgrave. Coxed by John Stillings, this Penn AC/Vesper composite boat boasted Edward Ives, Thomas N. Kiefer, Michael Bach, and Greg T. Springer.

Wanted Writers.

As the Rower's Deck expands its readership we are looking for new writers to give their perspectives on the American Rowing Community. If you have opinions, ideas, thoughts, or simply wish to recap a particularly exciting race or practice, please email me at Wisniewski.scott@gmail.com.