A Rowing Trifecta
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
however, col- killing me”—and wondered if it might get lege and crew so bad that she couldn’t row. But in a mo- both began to ment of clarity, Davies realized, “This is jell. She decided exactly what I want to be doing—all I to concentrate want to do is row this race.” That insight in psychology. —and a lot of Vioxx—calmed her. Shortly She went to Ba- thereafter, the United States crossed the varia the sum- finish line nearly a second ahead of Aus- mer of 2001 (she tralia and Germany, and Davies was at the speaks German) pinnacle of her sport. to write for the Only 15 minutes after the race, a U.S. student travel coach was telling the new gold medalists, guide Let’s Go. “Now you have to start thinking about an Furthermore, Olympic gold medal—the big one that Davies rowing with the “Caryn is quite you really want.” Right—Davies wants Radcliffe varsity accomplished in everything—and yes, she is gazing toward yoga,” according Olympia: she’ll take next year o≠ to train a natural athleticism. Caryn is a pretty to O’Leary. “She finds that a helpful tool full-time at the national rowing center in rower to watch.” for flexibility, range of motion, relaxation, Princeton for the 2004 Athens Games. Davies made the U.S. junior national and focus.” Davies also likes ballroom Further out, Davies says she’d like to be “a team; in 1999, she won silver at Plovdiv, dancing and wishes she had time to dance veternarian or a rowing coach. I’d love to Bulgaria (“The opening ceremony was in for the Harvard team. work for Radcli≠e. They have a lot of fun an old Roman ruin”) and gold in 2000 at Instead she’s been sidetracked with in the coach’s o∞ce—they eat chocolates Zagreb. She liked the taste of victory. In other diversions, like winning world and gossip.” craig lambert choosing Harvard, she explains, “The championships. Davies was the youngest speed of the team was very important.” rower in the U.S. eight that triumphed at Yet at first she hated the College. She Seville last summer. She went a bit stir- Tennis Rampant broke her foot shortly before arriving and crazy in Spain. “We were in a hotel by was “hobbling, in pain, miserable,” she re- ourselves, just the U.S.A. team,” Davies re- The Harvard men’s and women’s calls. Still, she was skilled enough to calls. “We were even discouraged from tennis teams were both undefeated in stroke the Radcli≠e varsity at times as a going to the opening ceremonies. I wanted the Ivy League this spring. The women freshman. But the season was disappoint- to socialize—a big part of the experience (19-4, 7-0 Ivy) had the best winning per- ing: “A lot of promise that year, but it is meeting people, having fun.” Worse, she centage (.808) and most wins (21) in never panned out,” she says. With time, was bothered by a sore rib—“It was just the history of the program. At season’s end they were ranked number 14 in the nation, their highest ever, up from num- ber 56 last year.They upended the two- Walking on Water: A Rowing Trifecta time defending Ivy champions, Pennsyl- vania, 6-1 to clinch the Ivy title and hand Half a continent apart, on the able in its decisive triumphs over many Penn its first Ivy loss since the spring of weekend of May 31, three Harvard crews rowers with athletic scholarships. 2000. The women then defeated Okla- pulled o≠ a feat unprecedented in the his- No one finished within a length of the homa State, 4-1, and upset Arizona, 4-3, tory of college rowing: simultaneous na- heavyweight men all year long. They de- in the NCAA tourney. Their season tional championships in men’s heavy- molished six other crews in four regattas ended with a 4-0 loss to the defending weight, women’s heavyweight, and men’s before the Eastern Sprints, where Harvard national champions, Stanford. lightweight rowing. The men dominated won its first title since 1990. There, the The men (19-9, 7-0 Ivy) captured their the Intercollegiate Rowing Association heavies beat Wisconsin, the 2002 champi- twelfth Ivy title in the last 15 years. The (IRA) regatta on the Cooper River in ons, by a length and a half. Another vic- showdown at the end of the Ivy season Camden, New Jersey, while the women tory in the JV race and a second-place pitted the thirty-ninth-ranked Crimson triumphed at the NCAA Championships finish by the freshmen allowed the Crim- against forty-second-ranked Brown. Har- on Eagle Creek Reservoir in Indianapolis. son to retain the Rowe Cup for overall vard triumphed, 5-2, and then upset sev- Though the mighty oars of Newell and heavyweight supremacy. enteenth-ranked Virginia Commonwealth, Weld Boathouses have long inspired won- Harvard entered the IRA for only the 4-3, in the first round of the NCAA der and sometimes awe, the 2003 trifecta fourth time in the regatta’s 108-year his- tournament before falling to sixteenth- is a new kind of high-water mark. Har- tory. Scheduling conflicts with exams and ranked Alabama,4-0, the next day. vard’s supremacy was the more remark- a previous obligation to the 151-year-old Harvard Magazine 85 JOHN HARVARD’S JOURNAL seven rivals in five scheduled for high noon on Sunday, June regattas before the 1. Radcli≠e’s powerful crew had by then Sprints, but Navy convincingly woman-handled its early edged the Crim- opponents (see page 84). At the NCAAs, son by less than the Black and White capped o≠ the a second on the greatest season in their 31-year history, Charles. At the earning their first national title since Eastern Sprints, 1973, when they were uno∞cial U.S. a crosswind af- champs. At Indianapolis, Radcli≠e rowed fected the racing through crews in the middle 1000 meters lanes unevenly of the race, as they had done all season, and Harvard end- finishing in 6:26, about half a length ed up fourth, more ahead of Michigan. The country’s top- than four seconds ranked crew, Stanford, was nearly a behind the win- length back in third place. ners from Prince- It was the third NCAA championship ton, a crew that in Harvard athletic history, the other two Harvard had beat- having come in men’s hockey (1989) and HARVARD SPORTS MEDIA RELATIONS en by more than women’s lacrosse (1990). Although Har- Radcliffe crew captains Sarah Psutka '03 (left) and Courtney Brown '03 five seconds just vard teams have now won 120 national hold aloft the NCAA championship trophy after winning at Indianapolis. two weeks earlier. championships, only three of these are Harvard-Yale boat race usually get in the However, as head coach Charlie Butt told NCAA titles. way. But this year’s calendar allowed Har- the Boston Globe, “They [his crew] are an As Radcli≠e rowed to glory in Indi- vard to send to Camden a crew that had exceptional bunch of guys for converting anapolis, Harvard’s heavyweight men fol- posted the Crimson’s first unblemished their disappointment into more boat lowed the NCAA final’s progress on the season since 1980. Several years ago, the speed.” At the IRA, Harvard crossed two Internet from Red Top, Harvard’s training IRA was designated the regatta that de- seconds ahead of Columbia, with Prince- camp near New London, Connecticut. cides the men’s and lightweight women’s ton nearly seven seconds back in fifth Minutes after the women’s victory, Har- national titles (only women’s heavyweight place. Thus the lightweights kept alive vard head coach Harry Parker telephoned rowing is an NCAA sport). their odd-year streak of national titles his Radcli≠e counterpart, Liz O’Leary, For the past four years California’s that dates from 1991 (see “The Oddest with congratulations on the splendid race heavyweight men have won the national Streak in Rowing,” May-June 2002, page that completed a supernal weekend on title at the IRA. But there were no Har- 68). Radcli≠e’s lightweight eight came the water. Six days later, Parker’s oars- vard crews in those races. This year, the second to Princeton in the final. The Har- men added another kind of trifecta to this Crimson won its first Varsity Challenge vard heavyweights captured the Ten Eyck season of dreams, sweeping the freshman, Cup by open water (in 5:43) over Wash- Trophy for overall supremacy. JV, and varsity races with Yale. The var- ington and California. By 750 meters, Har- No doubt these Saturday heroics sity’s 49.8-second victory margin was the vard and Washington had broken contact helped to inspire the Radcli≠e heavy- largest since Crimson went over the hori- with the field. With a “power 10” at that weights, who by then had reached the zon 1:04 ahead of Yale in 1976. point and a 20-stroke move at 1000 meters, finals of the NCAA Championships, craig lambert Harvard left the Huskies behind for good. The Crimson’s last national title came in 1992, at the then-championship-de- ciding, season-ending re- gatta in Cincinnati. The Harvard light- weights were not quite so invincible; they beat Harvard's heavyweight varsity, which won every- thing there was to win this year, in top form on the Thames River in New London, where they decisively beat Yale.