World Cup I: Summer Racing Begins

Post #92

Belgrade, Serbia - Ok, not quite summer racing.  It's only May after all. But this World Cup opens the international racing season and it's exciting to be back. We've seen many familiar faces so far: teammates, friends, competitors, people who helped us with this or that at last year's World Cups, etc.  One of the most exciting reunions was with Iva, the Serbian single sculler.  She went to Cal and was one of our training partners in early 2011.  It's been fun to see her out during practice on her home course.

 Race course on Sava Lake

Racing starts tomorrow and we're ready to go.  We have twelve entries in our event, which is much less than normal for World Cups.  It's a pretty even split between crews that have remained the same from last year and new combinations that are being tested ahead of the Olympics. The draw for tomorrow's heats has us up against Austria, China, the Netherlands, and two crews from Great Britain.  All of the information can be found on the regatta's main site, including links (along the top bar) to entries, results, and the live race viewer (Sunday finals only).  The winner of each heat advances directly to Sunday's A final. Everyone else will go through Saturday's repechage to try to qualify for the A final.

St. Sava Temple in downtown Belgrade

Downtown Belgrade

Row2k continues to do an amazing job of navigating the maze of Olympic selection for each crew; here is their updated "next steps" explanation. The latest super exciting news is that two of my fellow Badger rowing alums, Ross and Grant James, have been named to the men's 8 that will compete in Lucerne later this month.  They will have to win that race to qualify for the Olympics, which I have no doubt they are capable of.