World Cup III: Day 3

Post # 142

Kate and I took silver in the final! WATCH the video of our race here. 

I know some had it worse than me (the New Zealanders told me about their 13-hour layover in Singapore on their way home), but man that was a long day of traveling back to California. I'm so glad to be back. There's so much to tell about the weekend's racing in Switzerland. Team USA made history on several fronts, but the most impressive thing was how we performed as a team. We won medals in 8 events. As a country, we've never won the whole regatta before - meaning that we've never tallied enough points based on how we finished in all events combined to beat out every other country. This year, we did. The results are worth sharing:

Men's eight (M8+) - GOLD. Pipped the Germans at the line to end their four year winning streak. 

Women's eight (W8+)  - GOLD. A boat of young, relatively new (to the national team) girls set a World Record and World Cup record. 

Men's four (M4-) - GOLD. The US men's 8 and 4 have never won in the same year until now, and our four won this event for the first time since 2004. 

Women's single (W1x) - SILVER.  In her first year in this event, Elle Logan, who has spent many years in the women's 8+, overhauled last year's Olympic champ to take the silver. 

Lightweight women's double (LW2x) - SILVER. That's me and Kate. This finish qualified us directly for World Championships in August. 

Lightweight men's pair (LM2-) - SILVER. Two recent college grads made their debut on the senior team in this event. Impressive start! 

Women's double  (W2x) - BRONZE. One of these two is making her senior team debut, and grabbed third place by defeating fourth place Belarus - a boat with a multiple time World and Olympic champ. These two also qualified directly for Worlds. 

Women's pair (W2-) - BRONZE. Awesome race by these girls, who got third behind GB and New Zealand. They also qualified directly for Worlds.  

Sunday was an exciting day to be on Team USA as we kept seeing great performance after great performance come down the course. You can watch the finals for all these events online here (scroll down and click the icons to watch the different ones). Many of the events that didn't medal also had gutsy, impressive races and contributed to the overall result for our team. It's a new quadrennium and it's fair to say that Team USA is starting it off right. 

Men's four (M4-) right after crossing the line

Our US women's 8+ on the medals dock

Following tradition by tossing the coxswain in the water after victory in the men's 8+ (M8+)

Lucerne was the last international regatta before the World Championships. The team has now gone back to our respective training centers, whether that's in New Jersey, Oklahoma, Washington, California, etc. to get back to the grind and get ready for the big show in August. Along with a few more boats that will be selected through trials, we'll all convene again in Chungju, South Korea for this year's World Championships.  I'm excited to get back to training and see what we can all produce in six weeks' time. 

Artemis summer rowers: you can bet I'll be stopping by practice this week to say hi. See you soon!