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FEATURES
The
Best of 2024
Rowing reaches the peak of its four-year cycles in an Olympic year. This one was no different.
BY CHIP DAVIS
The Magic of Rowing
You can begin competitively and ease into something more zen, these over-60 athletes attest, or you can ease your frustrations as you pursue medals and the perfect stroke.
BY AMY WILTON
DEPARTMENTS
25 QUICK CATCHES
News Autumn Regattas Soar in Popularity Race Reports 1886 Regatta, Head of the Schuylkill Head of the Hooch
57 TRAINING
Sports Science The Power Plants of Your Muscles Coxing Now Hear This! Best Practices Korzeniowski Repents Fuel Keep Negative Body Thoughts to Yourself! Training Training to Fight Fatigue Coach Development The Power of Small Wins Recruiting Handling the High-Pressure Sell
FROM THE EDITOR
CHIP DAVIS
Change for the Best
Change comes hard in our sport, and sometimes not at all. For our “Best Of” awards, the change is significant for this year. Since Rowing News began naming the top coaches, crews, regattas, and athletes more than 20 years ago, the practice has become commonplace in rowing, leading to the awarding of everybody and anything of the year by multiple entities—including 10 “athlete of the year” recognitions from a single organization.
In the spirit of there being but one winner of a race—the boat that crosses the line first—we’re naming only a single crew and single coach for “Best Of” honors.
Just as there’s only one winner of a race, so too there’s only a single “best.”
For the U.S. National Team, changes in leadership and coaches dating to 2019 finally produced a gold-medal-winning crew with the men’s four in Paris. For his work with that crew, as well as other reasons you can read about beginning on page 34, Casey Galvanek is the Rowing News 2024 Coach of the Year.
No changes have been made in the line-up of USRowing’s head coaches, despite the results of the Olympics, as I report on page 28.
Change has come slowly for the Head of the Charles, which might be a big reason for the regatta’s continued success as America’s fall rowing festival and alumni reunion of the rowing establishment. It’s working: About 10,000 rowers raced 2,625 shells over a sunny three-day weekend in October that set a new record as the world’s largest rowing event.
Fast and responsive change has been a major reason the Head of the Hooch has grown almost as big as the Charles. Now in its third location since its founding in 1982, the Hooch features mostly junior and collegiate club crews that are flocking to the “Last of the Great Fall Regattas” and showcasing the future of our sport. Read about how it, as well as the Head of the Schuylkill and other events (including the venerable Henley Royal Regatta), have grown and improved since we’ve returned to travel and racing (page 25).
It’s never too late to make positive changes with rowing, as Barbara Hogan has, picking up our sport at age 61. Now 79, she’s rowed, sculled, and erged herself into better shape than when she was in her 30s. She’s one of four rowers photographed by Amy Wilton, who tells their inspiring stories with compelling images beginning on page 44.
We hope you’ll share your compelling rowing images so we can include them in next month’s Photo Annual, which never fails to change our perspective of something in our great sport.
Welcome Reminder
I appreciated reading the editor’s note, “Great Influences,” and “Passages” about Richard Davis in the September issue of Rowing News
The story about Richard’s 37 years at St. Paul’s reminded me very much of Bill Brown, our rowing coach at Andover.
Thank you. I’m sending a small donation to St. John’s Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, N.H.
Neb.
Faulty Management
In the October issue, in the article about the planned boycott by Southwest Region referees, this passage contains a statement by USRowing that is not totally accurate:
USRowing contends that the referees have not expressed their concerns to the governing body appropriately. In an email to the Southwest clinicians, Tom Rooks, USRowing’s director of Safeguarding, said the regional referee coordinator had not heard from clinicians about their pay and travel demands. Nor, in the last five months, had he or Hugh McAdam, the USRowing official who oversees referee programs.
I was the Southwest regional referee
coordinator from 2016 to 2018, and similar issues existed back then. In fact, USRowing began offering single-occupancy accommodations back then because of an issue at a national championship.
The referee corps has been consistent in its concerns and requests, but unfortunately I have worked through at least three different USRowing CEOs and their differing corporate structures throughout my tenure as an official. If our message is getting lost, I believe that it might be the fault of USRowing’s management.
After 17 years of serving as a referee, clinician, and trial referee, I tendered my resignation via a long letter in May of this year.
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Hight Point University club athlete Ethan Penny won the men’s championship single at the Head of the Hooch in Chattanooga.
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Two Into One
Twin Cities Youth Rowing Club (left) and Community Rowing, Inc. youth women’s eights race in the Head of the Charles. Sunny weather brought record crowds to the world’s largest three-day regatta.
PHOTO: LISA WORTHY
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Autumn Regattas Soar in Popularity
Heads of the Charles, Schuylkill, and Hooch draw record entries as rowing continues to grow.
The three largest autumn regattas, the Heads of the Charles, Schuylkill, and Hooch, all saw record entries this fall, showing continued growth since the return to racing and rowing travel after the Covid pandemic.
“Our numbers were the highest ever, and we are now probably the second-largest regatta in the U.S.,” said Head of the Schuylkill’s Ellen Carver. “We had 2,331 boats from 281 teams from 29 states and 10 countries.”
The Head of the Hooch, which can also lay claim to being the second-largest regatta in the U.S., and perhaps the world, saw about 2,200 boats race down the Tennessee River, with another couple hundred waitlisted because of limits on how many boats can get to the start and turn to race down the course safely and effectively in the
time and space available.
Head of the Schuylkill organizers had to close registration immediately after the Oct. 6 deadline after reaching the maximum number of boats they could accommodate.
The growth is driven by demand for racing opportunities. An increasing number of public high schools have competitive rowing programs. Collegiate club rowing, a student activity rather than a varsity program managed by the athletic department, has also been growing in popularity.
“We probably turned away more than 200 boats,” Carver said. “We’re thinking about the race schedule for next year as there is still some room on Saturday.”
1886 Regatta
The third annual 1886 Regatta presented by the Tuxedo Club in Tuxedo Park, New York featured 16 of the country’s top single scullers, eight men and eight women, racing in a oneon-one knockout style race, similar to Henley, over 1,886 meters in October. Michelle Sechser (who would go on to win the Head of the Charles) lost to Savannah Brija in a semifinal. Kara Kohler beat Brija to win the women’s $4,000 first place. Finn Putnam defeated rising Penn AC oarsman Cedar Cunninghan to take the men’s.
CONTINUES ON PAGE 26
Expanding racing to another day has worked for the
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Head of the Charles, which turns away hundreds, if not thousands, of entries every year. Masters scullers now race on Friday at the Charles, allowing more time on the weekend for student crews.
The biggest three head races aren’t the only ones seeing record growth. The Head of the South, held the weekend following the Hooch, in Augusta, Georgia, had 233 entries 20 years ago. This year, it attracted 455 entries, a 14-percent increase over last year’s 398 entries.
Head races aren’t the only ones adding race days. Henley Royal Regatta has grown to a six-day regatta. It’s not without challenges, but has worked well, said Richard Phelps, chair of the regatta.
“We are aware that the volunteers are fatigued and we need to make sure we’re covering for that. But otherwise, the infrastructure is coping with it. The athletes enjoy it.”
And there’s probably no going back.
“If we told the competitors, we’d have to cut the regatta by a sixth to fit it back into five days, I think you’d have a bit of a reaction,” said Phelps.
Numerous smaller regattas were canceled during Covid and seem to have ceased to exist since. Steve Lopez, head of the leading regatta registration service, RegattaCentral, has reported stagnation and even retraction of regattas overall. Events run at the expense of overextended volunteers without succession plans cease to exist when organizers reach the end of their time and energy.
The big successful events thrive by making the quality of the regatta experience a priority and by partnering with entities and authorities outside the sport that can provide vital support and foster future growth.
“We tried to speak to all the coaches during the course of the weekend,” Carver said, “and received incredible compliments—from how well-organized and fun the regatta was to how great Philadelphia is. Some teams that were new to Philadelphia were pleasantly surprised.”
The regatta receives “wonderful support” from the City of Philadelphia and Fairmount Park, Carver continued, and a regatta of its scope and scale cannot be held successfully without it.
“It’s important that we recognize that none of us can do what we do without
strong partnerships in our communities.”
“They’ve been wonderful,” said Head of the Hooch organizer Ulrich Lemcke of the City of Chattanooga, which provides police, public-works, and additional support through Outdoor Chattanooga, a division of the City of Chattanooga’s Parks and Outdoors Department.
“We have nothing but good things to say about these guys here. They go out of their way. It’s real Southern hospitality.”
Having to pay for those public services can break an event financially. Regattas held in Massachusetts pay triple time for police details on Sundays, time-and-a-half on Saturdays, and overtime after five o’clock on Fridays. EMTs, dive teams, and parkstaff costs can be among a regatta’s biggest budgetary line items. Such expenses add up and contributed to the $750,000 loss the Head of the Charles suffered last year, and the expected doubling of that loss for 2024, Rowing News has learned.
Public-entity support, rather than invoices, keep regattas going. TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority, created by Congress to provide electricity and flood control in the 1930s, is the largest public power company in the country and the title sponsor of the Head of the Hooch, which fits well with the TVA’s environmental goals.
Chattanooga Sports, a division of Chattanooga Tourism Company, also supports the regatta.
“We absolutely love it,” said Tim Morgan, of Chattanooga Sports. “And the Head of the Hooch has truly defined how a destination can utilize its waterways to drive economic development through sports tourism.”
In the case of the Head of the Hooch, that economic development means $8.5 million in local hotel, restaurant, and travel spending in one weekend. The need for more hotel rooms for competitors was the main driver of the regatta’s relocation from the Atlanta Olympics rowing site at Lake Lanier to Chattanooga, and more hotels are planned for the area immediately surrounding the riverfront-park regatta site.
“We want to do everything in our power to help them,” Morgan said, “to ensure that they have the resources to define success for this prestigious event that we love so much and that our community truly cherishes.”
Staying the Course
USRowing’s head men’s sweep coach Casey Galvanek and head women’s sweep coach Jesse Foglia signed full-time contracts with the national governing body before the Paris Games.
Foglia signed a four-year deal as women’s sweep head coach in January 2023, Rowing News has learned. Despite the U.S. failure to win a medal in any women’s events for the second Olympic Games in a row, Foglia, the boat coach for the women’s four and eight—both fifth at the Olympics—continues to coach the women’s sweep squad in Mercer, N.J.
Only two pairs are training there now, but a full group of 12 to 16 athletes is expected in the new year.
Galvanek, who coached the U.S. men’s four to Olympic gold in Paris and selected the men’s eight, which, coached by Washington coach Michael Callahan, qualified for the Games in May and won the Olympic bronze medal, was elevated to a full-time position with USRowing in July.
Galvanek continues to work with Sarasota Crew, currently cleaning up and rebuilding after hurricanes caused over $500,000 of damage to docks and ramps.
USRowing high-performance chief Josy Verdonkschot is expected to sign a four-year deal to continue leading Olympic, Paralympic, and world-championship rowing programs when he returns to the United States from The Netherlands in mid-November.
Verdonkschot hired both Foglia and Galvanek as the head coaches of the sweep training groups but waits until specific National Team line-ups are selected before naming boat coaches.
The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee will increase funding of the U.S. National Team’s Olympic efforts by 15 percent to $2 million per year and continue funding the U.S. Paralympic rowing program at $150,000 per year, even though in Paris U.S. crews captured only three medals—Olympic gold and bronze and a silver in the PR3 mixed four.
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Despite higher expectations in the rowing community, Verdonkschot had set Olympic goals with the USOPC of two to four medals, six to eight finals, and 10 to 12 qualified boats. Although the medal count was low, since U.S. Olympic crews performed at the high end of other parameters, the USOPC was pleased with the results.
Amanda Kraus Honored for Positive Impact
USRowing CEO Amanda Kraus received a 2024 Wise NYC Metro Women of Inspiration Award that recognizes women making a positive impact on the business of sports and events while serving as positive role models and mentors for other women.
“There are many people at USRowing who have been a major part of the progress, so I’m flattered to be recognized,” said Kraus.
Lauren Cohen, vice president of partner management and operations at the National Basketball Association, and Christina LaBrie, senior vice president of player relations at Major League Soccer, also received the award for 2024.
“It’s great for rowing to get this visibility in the company of the NBA and MLS,” said Kraus. “We’re certainly operating in a very different landscape than either of those entities, but it’s fun for the ‘little guys’ to be included.”
Kraus received the award because of her work at USRowing, where she’s led initiatives that promote a supportive workplace for women and families.
In October, she signed the IWGS Brighton Helsinki Declaration, an international treaty that supports the ongoing development of fair and equitable systems of sport and physical activity that are fully inclusive of women and girls.
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Schoch Awarded USRowing Medal of Honor
A new Head of the Charles trophy—the Fred Schoch Cup—also salutes the contributions of the longtime director.
Fred Schoch, who retired recently after 33 years as president and executive director of Head of the Charles, was awarded the USRowing Medal of Honor at the 2024 regatta.
In addition to the USRowing honor, the HOCR board announced that rowers in the men’s championship eights will compete henceforth for the Fred Schoch Cup.
“It was a big surprise and very gratefully received after my 33 years behind the plow for the Head of the Charles,” said Schoch. “Both awards in the same year are as preeminent as you can get in rowing, so I was very honored.”
This was the first year Schoch was able to see the regatta from a new perspective: retirement.
“It was really odd, an out-of-body experience,” Schoch said. “All of the social aspects of the regatta were the same; I just didn’t have a hand in the organization. I was involved in running it for more than half of its life, and building up the brand
worldwide has been one of my proudest achievements. It’s now a bucket-list event for rowers around the world.”
Schoch’s father, Delos “Dutch” Schoch, a legendary Princeton coach who as a young athlete was the alternate in the “Boys in the Boat” men’s eight that won gold at the 1936 Olympics, made sure that his son was involved in the sport from a young age.
“My whole life, I’ve been involved in the rowing community,” said Schoch. “I feel very fortunate to have been able to make a living in rowing. I was able to capitalize on my experience and my relationships. Being able to make a contribution to rowing following my father has been very meaningful.”
The new Fred Schoch Cup is not the first. The original Schoch Cup, named for Dutch, was presented in the 1970s to the winner of the Cal-Washington dual race and was stolen from the Washington boathouse.
“One of my board members was online
looking for trophies and found it being advertised,” Schoch laughed. “We got it back, and it’s now sitting on my mantel. There was a duplicate made that’s in Seattle. I may have to negotiate a deal and give the original back to the school. The new Fred Schoch Cup will sit in the trophy case at Cambridge Boat Club.”
The Fred Schoch Cup for the Head of the Charles now will stand on the metaphorical shelf alongside the Dutch Schoch Cup, which is awarded to the winner of the California-Washington dual race each spring.
“I look back at some of the previous winners of the USRowing Medal of Honor and I’m really humbled to be considered in that group. And I couldn’t be more thrilled to have my name on the HOCR trophy.
“I hope to present it for many years ahead.”
EMILY WINSLOW
Fred Schoch at the 2024 Head of the Charles.
PHOTO: GREGORY ZAPATA
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Saint Andrew Women, Belen Jesuit Men Win U19 Eights at Head of the Hooch
Most of the crews racing were youth rowers with an average age of 23. Almost as many youth doubles competed as eights and fours, and waitlists were dozens deep.
Near-perfect conditions greeted 2,200 crews as Saint Andrew Rowing Club won the women’s U19 eights and Belen Jesuit won the men’s U19 eights on the first day of the 2024 Head of the Hooch in Chattanooga.
“We really wanted to win, so we went out there and won it,” said Saint Andrew four seat Lucy Master.
“We came out really strong and performed really well. We haven’t done this well at Head of the Hooch since before Covid,” said Corbin Vassil, six seat of Cincinnati Juniors’ men’s U19 eight, who, like their women’s U19 eight, finished second.
“It’s really fun to race teams from all over the country, from the West Coast to the East Coast. We were 1.6 seconds off of Belen Jesuit, and they’re a pretty solid team, so it’s great to see where we are compared to all the other teams and to beat some of our rivals.”
At The Hooch, the majority of the crews racing were youth rowers with an average age of 23. Almost as many youth doubles (101 women’s, 97 men’s) raced as eights and fours, and with fields limited to 107 boats, waitlists were dozens deep.
“I got to double-race today,” said Virginia Tech’s Jack Brett enthusiastically. “Everyone was super-energized. The first race went OK—I was in the men’s four— and then I got to row in the men’s eight and got fifth, which is super cool.”
Founded in 1982 on the Chattahoochee River in Roswell, Ga., by members of the Atlanta Rowing Club, the Head of the Hooch moved to the Lake Lanier Olympic venue in 1996, and then to Chattanooga in 2005, where the city and its numerous downtown hotels and restaurants have made a very welcoming home for what has become one of the largest regattas in the world.
“They’ve been so good to us,” said organizer Ulrich Lemcke. “The city has just done so much for us.”
Racing at the Hooch concluded Sunday with an additional 50 events, mostly singles, but also mixed, masters, and Para racing.
“It’s our 12th regatta,” said Auburn coach and Friends of the Hooch director Jason Beagle of Para events at the regatta, “and this year we have 10 entries, and they are all inclusive entries with an inclusion partner and a Para rower.”
High Point University’s Ethan Penny won the men’s champion single event, covering the 4,500-meter course in 16:38.8. Penny is also the reigning American College Rowing Association single-scull champion. Next Level’s Sierra Cydrus won the women’s championship single in 17:25.5.
REGATTAS
Y Quad Cities finished second in the 107-boat youth doubles field at the 2024 Head of the Hooch.
Penn Rowers, Finn Hamill Shine at Head of the Schuylkill
“A very well-run regatta, nicely buoyed course, and beautiful weather,” pronounced Schuylkill Navy stalwart Clete Graham.
Over 8,000 rowers competing in 155 events at the 2024 Head of the Schuylkill Regatta enjoyed sunny warmth with challenging winds in Philadelphia in late October,
The University of Pennsylvania won both the women’s and men’s championship eights, finished first and second in the club eights, and won the championship fours and frosh/novice eights.
The Penn women also went one-two in the championship coxed four, and won the college frosh/novice eight
“It was a good learning event for us. Progress is our focus,” said new Penn women’s coach Bill Manning. “We all know that everyone will get faster, so we don’t keep score until April.”
The men from Penn also won the championship pair, frosh/novice coxed four, championship coxed four, and alumni quads.
Riverside Boat Club’s Elizabeth Martin won the women’s championship single, and Whitemarsh Boat Club’s Claire Friedlander won the women’s championship lightweight singles.
Head of the Charles men’s single
winner Finn Hamill, from New Zealand’s Waikato Rowing Club, has had an incredible fall racing season stateside, winning the Head of the Housatonic in the open men’s single, the Head of the Charles in the men’s championship single, and the Redgrave Challenge men’s championship single at Head of the Schuylkill.
“It was great to be able to come and race at the Schuylkill following the Charles,” Hamill said. “Managing to win all three of these regattas in the single was quite cool. A massive thank-you to Dan Schley from New Haven Rowing Club, who basically organized everything for me while I was in America and also allowed me to use his personal single for these races. I had come to America originally only to race at The Charles, but because of Dan, I got to see and do so much more than I ever could’ve anticipated.”
Hamill capped his racing in the United States this fall with an outstanding showing at Head of the Schuylkill. Not only did he win the men’s championship single but also he teamed up with Justin Schmidt, winner of the lightweight men’s single at both Head of the Charles and Head of the Schuylkill,
in the men’s double for another first-place finish.
Hamill finished the day with a mixeddouble sculls win with Karolien Florijn, the Paris Olympic women’s single-sculls gold medalist.
“From here, I head back to New Zealand, where I will resume training. I’ll be looking to compete internationally again next year, with sights set on LA2028.”
Clete Graham, who led the Schuylkill Navy and Stotesbury Cup Regatta through their greatest growth, has kept busy in socalled retirement.
He finished fifth of 11 in the men’s masters lightweight single (60 plus), won by Malta’s Ted Trocky, before coaching two Notre Dame women’s masters eights on Saturday, and then came back to coach seven sculling boats from Concord High School in Delaware on Sunday.
“I was pretty tired by the end of the day Sunday,” Graham admitted, “but had a great time all weekend. A very well-run regatta, with a very nicely buoyed course, and beautiful weather.”
Finn Hamill of Waikato Rowing Club won the Head of the Housatonic, Head of the Charles, and the Redgrave Challenge Men’s Championship Single at the Head of the Schuylkill.
2024 BEST OF
The Olympic-champion Romanina women’s eight of bow Maria Magdalena Rusu, Roxana Anghel, Ancuta Bodnar, Maria Lehaci, Adriana Adam, Amalia Beres, Ioana Vrinceanu, stroke Simona Radis, and coxswain Victoria Stefania Petreanu.
PHOTO: Julia Kowacic.
STORY BY CHIP DAVIS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JULIA KOWACIC AND LISA WORTHY
THE YEAR
Rowing reaches the peak of its four-year cycles in an Olympic year. This one was no different. After the disruptions of Covid and the world and our sport returned to relative normalcy, 2024 showed us that our regattas and our clubs, our schools and our teammates are, to paraphrase the motto, bigger, stronger, faster.
The Paris Olympics also gave us the Games in front of live crowds in a time zone that made them watchable for the first time since Rio 2016.
In the collegiate, junior, and club-rowing segments of our sport, championship regattas that had regained their pre-pandemic form resumed growing and improving. The ACRA, IRA, and Youth National Championship regattas developed into their biggest and best versions in 2024, as did numerous fall head races.
Texas regained the NCAA Division I crown, winning its third national championship in four years. Western Washington won the Division II national championship, its first since 2017, and likely one of the last DII titles, as the NCAA looks to contract. The Tufts University Jumbos won their first-ever Division III national championship, breaking the hegemony of Wellesley and Bates, which had combined to win all eight titles since 2015 (Covid scotched the 2020 regatta).
Washington’s men swept the heavyweight men’s events at the IRA national championship, and Harvard won both the varsity and second varsity lightweight eights to claim the lightweight national championship, as did Princeton’s lightweight women. The Wesleyan men completed a perfect season by winning the DIII IRA national championship in record time (5:41.5)
American Collegiate Rowing Association club national-championship titles went to the Vanderbilt women’s eight and Notre Dame men’s eight.
RowAmerica Rye’s men’s youth eight dominated again, and the women took the youth-eight title, two of 41 awarded at the USRowing Youth National Championships. Opportunities to improve and excel abound among other segments of North American rowing, especially with the U.S. women’s and Canadian men’s Olympic results, and new versions of rowing, such as Beach Sprints (making its Olympic debut at LA2028), indoor rowing, and World Rowing’s foray into e-sports.
ABOVE: The Romanian pair of Roxana Anghel (stroke) and Ioana Vrinceanu (bow) won Olympic silver and also won gold in the eight. PHOTO: Julia Kowacic.
CREW OF THE YEAR
Romania’s women’s Olympic eight is the Rowing News Crew of the Year.
Not only did they win the Olympic gold medal—in a blistering 5:54 (the world-best time is 5:52.9, set by Romania in a heat at the Tokyo Olympics), open water ahead of silver-medalist Canada—but also they doubled up, splitting in a double, pair, and four to win silver, silver, and finish fourth, respectively.
The three medals won by the nine Romanian women placed them fourth on the medals table—of nations. Only The Netherlands (eight), Great Britain (eight), and New Zealand (four) won more.
“We don’t row the eight much [in training],” said Simona Radis, who sculled in the double in addition to rowing in the eight, noting that the whole crew trains the same and shares common technique, allowing them essentially to jump in the eight—and win.
In addition to winning this year’s European Rowing Championships, seven
of the Olympic eight won the 2023 World Rowing Championships, as well as winning medals in the double, pair, and four, qualifying all four boats for the Games.
Leading up to the start of racing in Paris, the entries indicated that Romania wouldn’t double up for the Olympics, with other athletes entered in half of the seats in each boat. It proved a ruse, and a useful one (and completely within the written rules, if not their spirit). It distracted the competition leading into the most intense week of the quadrennial and granted Olympic credentials to the additional
ABOVE: The Romanian women’s eight nearly equaled the world-best time of 5:52.99—set by the Romanian 2020 Tokyo Olympic women’s eight—at the Paris Games, despite suboptimal conditions. PHOTO: Julia Kowacic.
Romania athletes listed, limiting the number left for other competing countries.
Doubling up at the Olympics could have backfired on the Romanians, if they didn’t advance directly to the final by winning their heat. All but the two heat winners on the Monday of the week-long Olympic regatta had to race the repechage on Thursday—the same day of both the double sculls and fours finals, and the day after the pair semifinals.
By winning the heat, the U.S. women’s eight could have advanced directly to the Saturday final and put the Romanians in
a very tough situation. They would have forced the Romanian double to hot-seat two Olympic races within an hour. But the Romanians were ready and blew off the line, over-stroking everyone at 50-plus strokes per minute, before “settling” to 41 for the body of the race (as is their custom) and winning the heat more than six and half seconds ahead of the American women.
“We didn’t plan to lose against the Romanians,” said U.S. chief coach Josy Verndonkschot. “We wanted to make them pay, and we couldn’t. So blame us, because now you give them a free ride to the finals.”
After the heat, members of the U.S. eight said they had “more gears,” but in the final they finished fifth in 6:01.7, more than seven seconds back from Romania.
No one was to blame; this Romanian crew is just the best. Defending Olympic champion Canada won the silver, open water behind the new Olympic champs.
If anyone in rowing is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers, it’s the Romanian women’s eight—looking like nine queens to everyone else’s pawns.
ABOVE: 2024 Rowing News Coach of the Year Casey Galvanek was awarded the Order of Ikkos by the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee after coaching the U.S. men’s four to Olympic gold. PHOTO: Lisa Worthy.
COACH OF THE YEAR
Casey Galvanek is the 2024 Rowing News Coach of the Year.
As the only coach to guide a U.S. crew—the men’s four—to Olympic gold—the first in the event since 1960, and the first gold for the U.S. men since 2004, Galvanek is an easy choice.
But we’re recognizing him for more than just what he achieved in Paris, winning at the pinnacle of our sport. He’s also been the leading figure, the true president, of Sarasota Crew, one of the top junior programs in the world in one of the most important rowing cities on Earth.
Since the inception of Sarasota Crew and the development of Nathan Benderson Park around the turn of the century, Galvanek has been at the forefront—as well as behind the scenes—of the great American rowing success story that is Sarasota, Florida.
“The community down here has been incredible,” said Galvanek. “It’s pretty impressive, the [additional] projects they are looking to do.”
Galvanek has been a central figure also in the success of the U.S. U19 nationalteam system, including developing many of the men who won medals, in both the four and eight (bronze), at the Olympics.
He coached the U.S. women’s lightweight double of Michelle Sechser and Molly Reckford for the Tokyo Olympics, when the boat was selected by trials. After that, “I got to coach a lot of different groups of athletes, which was exciting,” Galvanek said.
He developed a strong working relationship with U.S. National Team boss Josy Verdonkschot, who holds Galvanek in high regard, calling him “open-minded, loyal, and a team player,” and entrusting him to select both the men’s four and eight, the only two U.S. Olympic crews to win medals in Paris.
“I was still working with the juniors this whole time, too,” said Galvanek.
The bowman of the four, Nick Mead, made a point of recognizing Galvanek when the crew came off the water after winning Olympic gold.
“We four had the competitiveness and the willpower to do whatever it takes. But we didn’t necessarily know what that is.
And he came in and guided us through the steps we needed to do.”
It wasn’t all medals and love at the beginning of working with the four in 2023, though.
“That was a little rocky,” recalled Galvanek, who joined a European training camp a couple of days late because of commitments to Sarasota Crew. “I was just making jokes, and the guys didn’t like it too much.
“It’s kind of funny, that was a big pushback against me from a lot of people,” Galvanek said. “And they were very vocal about it, too.”
“Josy just said, ‘Give it some time,’ and it ended up working out by the end of the summer—crossing the chasm of trust.”
That trust was rewarded when the summer ended with the four winning a silver medal at the 2023 World Rowing Championships. A consistent joke since then has been the crew’s calling him “just a high-school coach.”
“He’s very hands-on, and also very organized. He’s very much into detail,” said Verdonkschot, who has watched Galvanek develop through coaching a wide range of athletes successfully. “More tools in his toolbox.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” Galvanek said. “Youth coaches are having to teach an unbelievably wide spectrum of skill. Some of the best coaches in America are junior coaches.”
He credits coaching education and being able to ask coaches like Mike Teti and Tim McLaren about how they explain the stroke for maturing his apprehension of the rowing stroke.
“I remember sitting in one of his presentations at the USRowing convention that helped me determine my technical image, how I present things. Every time I’d go to one of those conventions, Jim Joy’s or Chris Chase’s things, I always had great speakers. Those conventions are incredibly important.”
Galvanek attributes his coaching success also to “always trying to squeeze another bit out—those ‘little things’ are important.”
His advice for young coaches: “Be patient. Learn every opportunity you have. Coaching education is not a joke; it’s very important to get in front of as many experienced coaches as possible, because you’re going to learn something if you’re open-minded.”
When this issue went to press, Galvanek and USRowing were working out the final details for his continuing to coach through LA2028, and he has no intentions of letting up.
“Most likely, you’re going to have to improve to win another gold medal,” Galvanek said. “I hope the athletes understand that the coaches are looking out for their best interest. And if they don’t improve—squeeze out another fraction of a second—they might not get a gold again.”
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Honorable Mentions go to the rivalries that motivate the best to be better, and make the racing more interesting.
The Oxford-Cambridge rivalry birthed intercollegiate athletics when The Boat Race became the first sporting contest between two schools in 1829.
The Harvard-Yale rivalry launched college sports in America, with the first race on New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee in 1852.
The Cal-Washington rivalry burns hotter than ever, with Washington duplicating Cal’s 2023 IRA heavyweight-events sweep this year.
The first call coach Michael Callahan made when Washington announced it was leaving the Pac 12 was to Cal coach Scott Frandsen to assure him they would still race, no matter what. Despite winning the bronze at this year’s IRA, Frandsen’s disappointment bordered on despair, and the fact that Washington had won could not have been unrelated.
NCAA women’s rowing is every bit as competitive, if not more so, with a remarkable rivalry between Texas and Stanford, the two claiming all of the last four Division I national championships. The current score stands at three-to-one Texas, with Stanford finishing second—twice tied on points—all three times the Cardinal didn’t win.
A great rivalry comes to an end this year with Emma Twigg’s retirement from flat-water 2,000-meter “classic” Olympic rowing. The Tokyo single-scull Olympic champion was beaten by her rival—and friend—Karolien Florijn in Paris.
“To have the race of my life and be there with Karolien, who I’ve been chasing for the last three years, was equally as special, and sharing it with her as well was pretty cool. We’ve formed an awesome friendship over the last three years, so it’s really cool.”
ABOVE: The University of Washington swept the men’s heavyweight events—men’s four, men’s third varsity eight, second varsity eight, and varsity eight (which determines the national champion)—at the 2024 IRA National Championship, replicating rival Cal’s 2023 achievement. PHOTO: Lisa Worthy
Mine has been a life immersed in rowing since I was 14, but the thing is, you can begin at any age.
I met Barbara Hogan while I was coaching at Craftsbury Outdoor Center in Vermont last summer. This rowing phenom, then only 78, would have kicked my 55-year-old fanny had we raced side by side. Luckily, I could coach from the launch and didn’t have to try to keep up.
Michael and Winter Robinson took it up in their 60s and 70s, respectively. They love the quiet meditative side of the sport, rowing on the Saco River in Maine. Their homestead, which sits on a quiet inlet, features chickens, gardens, and a barn full of every kind of boat you can think of.
I coached my friend Amy Mitchell’s son for years, and finally she was ready to get in a boat herself. When Amy called and said, “You’re going to think this is a crazy idea, but could you photograph me on an erg on the lake?” I said, “Tell me more.”
“Well, I’m about to turn 60,” she said, “and I don’t want to be a wimpy 60-yearold. I want to be a badass.” So we took my lights, camera, and her erg to the lake. It was March in Maine, so we were out there with the ice fishermen at sunset. We got only a few funny looks.
While Barbara loves to row hard and compete, Michael and Winter just love to have another way to be in nature. Amy appreciates both sides of rowing. Being on a lake in Midcoast Maine, with plenty of competitive rowers around her, she can watch the loons, eagles, and osprey or train hard with the other masters rowers in her club.
That, I think, is the magic of this sport. You make it what you want and need. You can begin very competitively and ease into a more relaxed routine as life gets busy. Or you can keep that competitive spirit going and have that place to release your daily frustrations and find those few perfect strokes each time you get on the water.
Whichever way you decide to approach the sport, there’s a place for you, and you will always find people to inspire you to carry on. I told Barbara that I want to be just like her when I grow up.
The Magic of Rowing
YOU CAN BEGIN COMPETITIVELY AND EASE INTO SOMETHING MORE ZEN, THESE OVER-60 ATHLETES ATTEST, OR YOU CAN EASE YOUR FRUSTRATIONS AS YOU PURSUE MEDALS AND THE PERFECT STROKE.
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY WILTON
Previouse Page: Amy Mitchell, 60 My son Devin began rowing in eighth grade. It was so beautiful on the lake in the mornings, and the regattas were so much fun. As I watched his love for the sport grow, I began to think, “Maybe I could try that, too.”
I had been a runner for many years, but I was very impressed and inspired by the masters rowers. Once I got in a boat, I was hooked. I love the solitude of rowing in a single, as well as the camaraderie of rowing with a team. My biggest joy in rowing so far was competing at the HOCR last year in the same boat as my son.
I wanted to document the beginning of my sixth decade with rowing, but my birthday is in March, so I decided to bring my indoor rowing outside for the photographs.
This Page: Barbara Hogan, 79
In 2006, I was in Princeton and saw adults out on Lake Carnegie in an eight. I just had to find out about that. When I heard about the Learn to Row program at Carnegie Lake Rowing, my question was,“Do they take geriatrics?” I was 61 years old and about 40 pounds overweight. It was a pivotal moment in my life. I soon retired from teaching and embraced rowing. I had never done any sport.
I signed up for every sweep competition and tried sculling. In 2010, I went to Craftsbury Outdoor Center for the first time. Since then, I have gone back every year with my husband, Spurge, my biggest supporter. I have competed in every boat class except the pair as well as indoor-rowing 2K races every winter.
I’ve raced at the Head of the Charles every year since 2008 and have won five gold medals—three in doubles and, in 2021 and 2022, in the veteran women’s single. I currently row with Fairmount, Bachelors, Carnegie Lake, and Riverside. I’m now on my way to compete at the SilverSkiff regatta in Turin, Italy. I will be representing the AllAmerican Rowing Camp in the 11K race on the Po River.
Last weekend, I raced at the Head of the Schuylkill and won two gold medals and one bronze. In 2014, I was voted USRowing’s Fan’s Choice Masters Athlete of the Year. Now 79, I still row and/or erg more than 12K a day on average and hope to be rowing for years to come—my mom is
101. I am so much healthier now than in my 30s. Most of all, I love rowing my single at sunrise on Lake Carnegie in Princeton.
Right: Winter Robinson, 76
Michael, my husband, has been rowing for several years. When I began looking for a new form of exercise, he suggested that I try rowing. What I discovered was not what I expected. Rowing is the closest thing to mindfulness—being one with movement, the boat, the oars, and the water—that I have ever done. It is intuition in action.
To row, I must stay in the present moment. Being a “newbie,” this oneness— this fleeting glimpse of something beyond this reality—happens rarely. But when it does, it is addictive. This is why I will keep rowing.
Right: Michael Robinson, 70
I like the workout I get from rowing, but there’s much more to it for me. When I decide I’m going to row, there’s a lightness in my step. I begin to wonder what the water will be like. Will it be like glass or will the wind tease me with some ripples?
When I’m on the water, I’m in the arms of nature. I love to watch the reflections of the clouds on the surface of the lake. When I’m really lucky, there’s a spectacular sunset— just for me. There’s a quietness with each stroke as I glide through the water. My busy mind lets go.
Author and Photographer Amy Wilton is a rowing coach who lives in Portland, Maine. She’s been rowing, coaching, and photographing the sport for decades and is working on a book of photographs of athletic women over 50 titled Powerful . She is enrolled in a Ph.D. program in art and design through the Transart Institute, based in Liverpool, England.
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TRAINING
The Power Plants of Your Muscles
Mitochondria convert food and oxygen into energy. The more mitochondria in your muscle cells, the more mechanical energy they can produce and the faster you can row.
All the cells in your body need energy, and just as combustion engines need fuel, your cells need adenosine triphosphate, or ATP for short, a molecule that can be split easily and that releases energy wherever it’s needed in the body. When you work hard, your muscle cells need a lot of energy. ATP is produced by the mitochondria, the so-called power plants of the cell. These organelles convert food and oxygen into the energy your cells need. The more mitochondria in your muscle cells, the more mechanical energy they can produce and the faster you can row. That’s why you need to do everything you can to ensure that your body produces and plants the most mitochondria in your muscles. How can you achieve this? The best way is aerobic exercise—uninterrupted exercise for at least five minutes during which you consume oxygen. The effect on the mitochondria depends on how long and intensely you exercise. Lowintensity training increases the number of mitochondria, and high-intensity training
increases the size of mitochondria. That’s why you should train both ways.
Improvement stems from longer training sets at low intensity, and it can take three to four weeks of consistent training to see the first significant increases in your mitochondria. That’s why it’s essential, if you want to perform at a high level in rowing, to prepare for long periods and to continue training for many years.
Several studies of the oxygen uptake of top rowers show that to achieve peak performance—to generate a large amount of power over a long period of time—you must achieve a high maximum oxygen uptake. Maximum oxygen uptake varies from person to person and is influenced by genes, size, and muscle mass.
You can improve your performance without increasing your maximum oxygen uptake by training in a manner that enables you to exercise at a high level without producing lactate. This means boosting your aerobic and anaerobic thresholds, which requires building more mitochondria or increasing the size of the
mitochondria you already have.
If your muscle cells have a lot of mitochondria already, it’s more difficult to make or build new and larger ATP producers. Which is why elite athletes must resort to other methods to achieve continual performance gains, such as better training, a balanced diet, more sleep, relaxation, and exposure to sunlight, and nutritional supplements that support mitochondrial growth. Consult your doctor and have your blood tested.
Regular exercise and a healthy lifestyle are critical as we age. The progressive loss of mitochondrial function accelerates cell degeneration and death. Study after study has pointed to the broad benefits of aerobic exercise, and one of the best forms, because it recruits so many muscles, is rowing.
VOLKER NOLTE, an internationally recognized expert on the biomechanics of rowing, is the author of Rowing Science, Rowing Faster, and Masters Rowing. He’s a retired professor of biomechanics at the University of Western Ontario, where he coached the men’s rowing team to three Canadian national titles.
SPORT SCIENCE
Now Hear This!
Don’t just endure coxswain recordings. Really listen, preferably several times. And to get better, share your recordings for feedback.
The winter can be a great time for a renewed focus on what I hope is a year-round activity—listening to coxswain recordings.
Maybe you groan with dread. Even if you detest the sound of your own voice, this is an essential part of coxing. Don’t just endure the recordings; really listen, preferably multiple times. Do your best to listen without judgment and do a true selfassessment. If you want to get better, you’re going to need to share your recordings to get feedback.
Enlist your coach and some of your fellow coxswains.
“Listening to them in groups is the best way to get everyone’s feedback,” said Kelsey Anderson, coxswain coach at Ready Set Row. “Listening on your own is fine, but otherwise we can get pigeonholed into what we think is good. Do it with the people who want to be vulnerable and share.”
Don’t be afraid to get and give feedback. When you get feedback, take some time to digest it. Make sure to ask follow-up questions and look for commonalities in the critiques you receive.
You’re looking for the same essential ingredients from any race recording, whether your own or someone else’s. You should be able to listen without prior
knowledge of the field and understand what’s happening throughout the race. This doesn’t mean you need to narrate what’s happening continuously throughout racing, but you do need to give basic information and updates about your opponents. Listeners should be able to understand what the boat’s race plan is and where they are in their plan. And the race should be compelling; not every recording will give you goosebumps, but you should want at least to continue listening. Beyond these elements, you should also assess word choice, tone, clarity, the rhythm (or lack thereof) of your voice, and the frequency and intensity of your calls. You’ll find plenty of things to work on in your recording. Some will be as simple as switching a few words; some might be part of a larger theme of tone, variation, your execution of the race plan, and awareness of your surroundings. Ask yourself: What am I conveying both logistically, competitively, and emotionally to my boat?
Be a voracious consumer of coxswain recordings—the good, the bad, and the in-between. There is a temptation to listen only to the best of the best, particularly recordings from Olympic and worldchampionship coxswains. But you’re not going to be able to copy and paste the
things those coxswains do well into your own boats.
“I’ve noticed a lot of coxswains trying to be Mary Whipple or Katelin Snyder, and that’s great, but your athletes aren’t there, and you can’t take your athletes there,” said Anderson.
You can, however, learn from the things they do well, particularly their economical use of words.
Most recordings, including your own, will have strong points and weak points. If you’re quick to categorize a recording as bad, make sure to identify what makes it difficult to listen to.
“Listen to a mix of the phenomenal ones and the bad ones and see where they overlap,” said Anderson. “Hearing different people, different ways of phrasing things, different verbs people use—it’s like getting 20 coaches in a room at once.”
It’s an opportunity too valuable to pass up. So get some recordings, gather some coxswain friends, and begin listening.
HANNAH WOODRUFF is an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the Radcliffe heavyweight team. She began rowing at Phillips Exeter Academy, was a coxswain at Wellesley College, and has coached college, high-school, and club crews for over 10 years.
TRAINING
Korzeniowski Repents
The “coach-traitor” who used and preached “pause body over” for 20 years explains why he switched to “pause at the finish.”
In the fall of 1983, I came back to the States from Italy with the technical vision of the rowing stroke from Thor Nilsen, the legendary performance coach who helped rowers in Europe win eight Olympic gold medals and more than 30 world championships.
Nilsen advocated the body swing, acceleration of the oar handle, solid draw of the hands in, continuous motion of the hands around the turn and going away until body-over position. It was rebound from the water that would bring the upper body back to body-over position.
And that’s how we’d been rowing for the past 30 years. In this type of stroke, there was no place for a pause at the finish.
In the 1980s and before, Harry Parker’s Harvard boats rowed with a short pause at the finish. The difference between our boats was very visible. I never criticized his approach, and he never criticized mine. When Harvard rowers like Jack Rusher and Peter Sharis joined my U.S. National Team program, I noticed that they all had a very smooth, gliding slide forward that finished with the direct entry of the blades into the water. Harvard guys told me this was the result of training sessions with Harry and doing a ton of “placement drills” in the fall of freshman year.
In later years, as I got more involved with junior and high-school rowing, I noticed how difficult it was for young not-so-experienced rowers to execute the whole sequence of the finish. Doing pause drills at body-over was not helpful because it was too much to do. They had to swing their bodies (one would jerk, one would be slow, one wouldn’t swing at all), then bring their hands to the body (fast, slow, jerk, hit the body), then get the blade out of the water, then the hands away. Again, everyone had a different version— some would do it very fast, some very slow, and in the end they had to follow the person in front. In my experience, the pause bodyover offered inexperienced rowers too many possibilities to be different.
Completely opposite is the pause at the
finish. Everything is simple; execution of all these small functions, like swing or draw of the hands to the body, is dictated by the pause. This pause disallows alternatives for executing the finish of the stroke; everyone is forced to do it the same way. Result: The timing is much better, and the pause provides a very important moment of relaxation before beginning the recovery, which occurs as one gliding motion during which the sequence of hands, body, and slide happens naturally.
That’s when I became a big fan of pause at the finish, if not for steady-state rowing then definitely for teaching purposes, especially with less-experienced crews.
I noticed how difficult it was for young not-soexperienced rowers to execute the whole sequence of the finish.
A couple of years ago, I posted a video of Drew Ginn with James Tompkins paddling between the races in Athens. What you see is fluid motion and very little hesitation at the finish because of the tapping down motion. I also posted a video of Drew Ginn and Dunkin Free from 2008, in which they pause at the finish. Guess which boat was faster?
“The 2004 boat felt better, but the 2008 boat was faster,” Drew said. Why? Because a little quicker slide forward after the pause forced a quick change of direction at the front and stepping on the foot stretchers—what Valery Kleshnev calls the “trampoline effect”
Watch video of the U.S. gold-medal four. They row steady-state with a wellpronounced pause. They display a uniform slide forward followed by a quick change of direction and stepping on the foot stretchers. They are capable of racing at 38 to 40 strokes per minute and sprinting at 45. Maybe the ratio of the steady state is a little different from what we’re used to, but it doesn’t affect
anything at higher cadences.
Our top junior boats also row with a pause at the finish, and it’s not related to the strength of the athletes. I’m sure their coaches experimented plenty before deciding to row this way. The same applies to college rowers.
As the cadence increases, most of these pauses disappear gradually, and the stroke becomes continuous motion, with a very defined, easy rhythm.
How power is applied affects how you go about the hands at the finish. Rowers who use active body swing (pendulum) from the hips and rebound from the water tend to have very continuous hands because they’re still part of the rebound. Examples: all Mike Spracklen boats, Mike Teti’s 2004 men’s eight (especially stroke Brian Volpenhein), all Greek boats (gold-medal winner in the men’s single in Tokyo).
These boats always looked a little heavy because the hands still work at the finish and aren’t relaxed. Only the Dutch are able to relax—even before the end of the stroke (easy finish)—so their hands go around effortlessly.
For boats rowed with front-loaded power application, the rhythm of the pause at the finish is advantageous. Good examples are the U.S. gold-medal four or Drew Ginn’s pair from 2008 or video of the Australian men’s four in 2017. (Search Kris Korzeniowski on YouTube.)
The bottom line: Pause at the finish is an excellent drill for teaching kids how to row, how to move the body in the boat, and how to get the finish together. Combined with the placement drill, it creates a very simple version of the rowing stroke, and it’s excellent for rowing with a front-loaded stroke.
KRIS KORZENIOWSKI is the most influential coach in USRowing history. He rowed competitively for 10 years in his native Poland, where he also started his coaching career. He moved to the United States in 1977, worked in Italy with legendary coach Thor Nilsen from 1981-1983, returned to the United States in 1984, and has held numerous posts and titles while coaching, mentoring, and befriending generations of rowers and coaches.
Keep Negative Body Thoughts to Yourself!
TikTok can breed disordered eating attitudes and behavior, and parents who make disparaging comments about their own bodies can cause eating disorders in their children.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is the nation’s largest group of food and nutrition professionals. At its annual convention recently in Minneapolis, members presented research findings that you’ll find interesting. A sampling:
• Teenagers (14 to18 years) in the U.S. have the lowest Healthy Eating Index Score (49 out of 100) because of their high intake of sweetened beverages and sweet baked goods. How about suggesting more water, bagels with peanut butter, and bean burritos for easy, low-cost, and better sports-food options?
• Athletes tend to overeat protein. This raises environmental as well as health concerns. Insects are a sustainable source of protein, though they’re viewed commonly as disgusting. The most palatable insect form is powdered (flour). Will rowers one day embrace insect-based protein products? Stay tuned.
• Most female athletes, including those in a study of Division 1 soccer players, tend to eat too little carbohydrate.
Analysis of food records from 12 players suggests they ate the recommended amount of fat and protein but consumed too little carbohydrate. Ten of 12 players fell short of the recommended 2.5 to 4.5 grams of carbohydrate per pound per day. (That’s at least 1,200 to 2,150 calories a day from carb-rich grains, fruits, and veggies for a 120-pound player. Athletes could perform so much better if they were to enjoy more carbs.
• The body’s response to sugary foods differs between sedentary and fit people. Exercise enhances the ability of your muscles to take up glucose quickly, offsetting potential “sugar spikes” after consuming high-sugar foods. Blood-sugar management is a good reason to take a walk after enjoying a sweet treat.
• Athletes often complain about intestinal discomfort and GI distress. Gut issues can be triggered by academic, work, and athletic stress, disordered eating, anxiety, and depression. Consulting with a sports dietitian can help athletes reduce, if not resolve, gut issues.
• Rowers with gut issues might benefit from taking digestive enzymes (such as FODZYME, Bean-O, LactAid pills). A study with 96 participants (average age: 57) showed that more than half had a positive response from FODZYME. They reported less abdominal pain, bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea—plus better mental well-being as well as overall quality of life.
• Food allergies, food sensitivities, and/ or autoimmune diseases that limit dietary options are challenging for many athletes, particularly those in college. They express frustration, annoyance, isolation, and increased anxiety, especially when dining staff are unable to answer their questions confidently. Their overall college experience gets impacted negatively when they’re excluded from on-campus events that offer free food. It’s common for them to prepare and carry enough food for the entire day, and they face limited options when dining out. Students may worry about getting sick after eating school food, which can lead to class absences, trips to the doctor, and difficulty making up missed assignments. Helping athletes with dietary restrictions is important so they can meet their nutritional needs and experience emotional well-being.
• TikTok can trigger disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. Don’t go there! Parents who makes disparaging comments about their bodies can trigger the development of eating disorders in their children. Keep negative body thoughts to yourself!
• A study with 70 females reveals a disconnect between actual and perceived body fatness. Distorted body image—an unrealistic view of oneself—increases the risk of restrictive dieting and starve-binge eating patterns to lose body fat. Athletes, please understand that some body fat is necessary for overall health.
• Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) is a syndrome stemming from chronic consumption of inadequate food to meet daily energy expenditure. This deficit impairs the health and performance of athletes. Athletes with REDs are at increased risk for eating disorders and disordered eating. Coaches, health professionals, and athletes alike need REDs education, particularly in sports settings where REDs signs and symptoms are prevalent. If you work with a team, how
FUEL
TRAINING
about setting up a REDs workshop with your local sports dietitian?
• Female athletes believe society expects them to look feminine and have an ideal body. This unspoken weight bias presents as:
1) negative comments about weight or appearance
2) pressure to conform to certain body standards
3) unequal treatment compared to leaner peers
A survey of normal-weight female athletes reported almost half had experienced weight discrimination. We need to change this mindset so that strong and powerful replaces the quest to be lighter and leaner.
• Many athletes—including rowers— with eating disorders/disordered eating feel ashamed of their dysfunction and fear being stigmatized. Unfortunately, this can hinder willingness to seek help and delay their recovery. Rowers who have overcome food issues, please talk openly about your recovery so those who are struggling can hear your story. You just might make a difference in a teammate’s life.
• Light-colored morning urine signals adequate hydration. Athletes who exercise in tight unis may fear that drinking preexercise water will make their stomach stick out. That fear is baseless.
• Although student-athletes generally need sports-nutrition education, they may miss out because of lack of funding. One school solved the problem by partnering with nutrition graduate students who worked together with student-athletes to figure out what topics were of interest. (The winners: basic nutrition, game-day fueling and recovery, sport-supplement benefits and costs, and game-day meal planning.)
They then created a class that met once a week before school (the athletes’ suggestion) for four weeks. The students became empowered with the knowledge, and the graduate students appreciated the real-world teaching experience. Maybe you can make this happen in your town or with your club?
NANCY CLARK, M.S., R.D., C.S.S.D., counsels both fitness exercisers and competitive athletes in the Boston area (Newton; 617-795-1875). Her best-selling Sports Nutrition Guidebook is a popular resource, as is her online workshop. For more information, visit NancyClarkRD.com
Training to Fight Fatigue
Maximal strength training develops endurance because increased muscle strength means muscle fibers are worked at a lower percentage of their maximum load.
The reasons for declining performance are complex, but improving your ability to turn fat into energy, strengthening your central nervous system, and reducing muscle dysfunction from fiber damage all bolster your rowing in the final meters of a race.
Here are three workouts that will improve your resistance to fatigue:
1) Long endurance rows at low intensity (18 to 20 strokes per minute). This steady “conversational” rowing improves fat oxidation. It’s important that these aerobic-threshold rows are long enough to challenge your current endurance ability.
If you’re comfortable rowing 60 minutes, build up to 75 minutes, then 90 minutes by making at least one of your weekly sessions longer than normal. When muscle fibers begin to tire and glycogen levels drop, some of the workload is passed on to higher-power muscle fibers that adapt and become more efficient aerobically.
2) Add late-stage intensity to these long rows. During the final 15 or 20 minutes of a practice, increase the rate to 24 or 26 strokes per minute, a comfortably hard pace that’s closer to your anaerobic threshold. This helps train both your mental and muscular ability to row hard in the presence of fatigue.
3) Try the reverse: Row intervals, then add a long endurance row. For example, row 8 x 500 meters with three minutes rest at your 2,000-meter pace, then top off the session with 60 minutes of easy rowing and drills.
The intervals cause a high level of fatigue and glycogen depletion, which again create the conditions for those higherpower muscle fibers to adapt aerobically. Additionally, muscular-endurance intervals help build resistance to muscular damage.
These intervals above anaerobic threshold are challenging and require stronger efforts at lower cadences to increase the demands on your muscles. For example, 3 x 20 minutes with seven minutes rest at 24 strokes per minute, or 4 x 10 minutes with five minutes rest at 26 strokes per minute.
Maximal strength training helps develop endurance because increased muscle strength means muscle fibers are worked at a lower percentage of their maximum load, resulting in less muscular damage.
MARLENE ROYLE, who won national titles in rowing and sculling, is the author of Tip of the Blade: Notes on Rowing. She has coached at Boston University, the Craftsbury Sculling Center, and the Florida Rowing Center. Her Roylerow Performance Training Programs provides coaching for masters rowers. Email Marlene at roylerow@aol.com or visit www.roylerow.com.
PHOTO: LISA WORTHY
COACH DEVELOPMENT
The Power of Small Wins
By focusing on the big picture or the ultimate outcome, we miss finding sustainable joy and satisfaction in the day-to-day of coaching that will build confidence and momentum.
The last fall races have wrapped up. Many teams are transitioning to land training for winter. As coaches, we’re staring down the tunnel of months of indoor training ahead—that critical period that will lay the foundation for spring success. It’s a moment that can feel both full of possibility and daunting.
For many athletes, and coaches, the transition indoors marks the biggest mental hurdle of the year. Gone are the distractions of beautiful mornings on the water, the immediate feedback of the boat, the natural motivation of upcoming races. Instead, we’re faced with the steady hum of ergs and the monotonous work of building fitness.
celebrating small wins.
I kept a detailed coaching log to track progress, my athletes’ and my own, no matter how small. I took videos of athletes on the erg at the beginning of the winter and compared it to footage from later in the season to be able to quantify improvement and show them.
Winter is the time to establish a personal practice of celebrating small wins
This is precisely why winter is the time to establish a personal practice of celebrating small wins.
This is a concept that is likely not new to most coaches. We are accustomed to encouraging our athletes to celebrate the small wins of a well-paced piece or a seemingly minor technical change. But how often do we practice what we preach? We need our own small wins, too. By focusing too much on the big picture or the ultimate outcome, we lose the ability to find sustainable joy and satisfaction in the dayto-day of coaching that will build our own confidence and momentum.
When we look for the small wins, we set a positive tone for the winter season, sharpen our own observational skills, create opportunities for meaningful connections, and establish practices that will sustain us not only through the winter but also throughout a career.
Early in my career, as I moved from coaching at Stanford, where we were able to row year-round, to Ohio State, where winters were long and gray, I began to develop some practices to help keep me positive and productive throughout the months on the erg. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was cultivating a habit of
I set clear challenges for myself: to check in with a certain number of athletes per week; to spend time mentoring a coxswain’s technical eye each day; to push myself to be engaged and develop my relationships with the team.
Ultimately, I came to believe that those winters spent on the erg in Columbus were what made those teams so resilient. I regarded them as a secret weapon for building grit and perseverance rather than a burden to be endured. Encouraging a positive attitude toward them bred mental toughness.
RECRUITING
Handling the High-Pressure Sell
Recruitment can be a high-stakes process, especially when coaches pressure student-athletes to make quick decisions. During official visits, it’s common for coaches to set immediate deadlines, which can be overwhelming for both athletes and their families.
Here are some tips for navigating the process:
Clarify your top choices.
Focus on a shortlist of schools that genuinely interest the rower. Taking too many visits can lead to confusion and make it harder to evaluate each option effectively.
Stay in control of your timeline.
Choosing a school is one of the most important decisions of your life. Don’t rush just because a coach wants an immediate answer. Make sure the decision is right for you, even if it takes a bit longer.
Communicate your timeline clearly.
Coaches often will provide their own deadlines if you don’t state yours. Be upfront with coaches about when you plan to decide, so they understand your process.
Respond to pressure tactfully.
As you prepare to guide your team into winter training, consider how you might begin celebrating your small wins now. The habits and mindset you establish in these early weeks will echo through the months ahead, creating a more engaging and productive indoor season for everyone. And you might be surprised by how many victories you find when you really begin looking for them.
MADELINE DAVIS TULLY
MADELINE DAVIS TULLY competed as a lightweight rower at Princeton and on the U-23 national team before coaching at Stanford, Ohio State, Boston University, and the U-23 national team. Now a leadership and executive coach, she is the founder of the Women’s Coaching Conference
If a coach asks for a commitment but you still have visits scheduled, try this approach: Share the date of your last visit, express that you’d like to discuss it with your family afterward, and commit to providing an answer within a set number of days after the final visit. This proactive approach helps keep the process smooth and respectful for both you and the coach. While coaches and universities have their own timelines to complete recruitment, it’s essential to remember that a rushed decision may not be the best one for you. Take the time you need to make an informed decision and drive the process with confidence.
ROBBIE TENENBAUM coached at the NCAA level for over 30 years and with the U.S. Junior National Team for eight. He now helps rowers and families navigate the university recruiting process.
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workout of 4’3’2’1’ (minutes), and another of 5x2’.
“I was waiting for my medical clearance to come through that allowed me to do the tests, so when it finally came, I had to do all three of those workouts on the same day,’ Jack said. “I was in the top 50, so I got to keep trying out. Finally, we had a 5x5’ workout, and cuts were made based on that.”
Jack was one of 12 novices to make it onto the team. Four recruits and four experienced rowers also made it. He was tenth of the 20 new members of the team.
They moved into boats and rowed twice a day for the rest of the fall. Where do you put a 135-pounder amid a bunch of guys over six feet tall and 50 pounds heavier? The bow, obviously, and that’s where he stayed. For a guy his size, he was spinning impressive ergs. At Wisconsin, he did only one 2K and pulled a 6:26. That put him about 20th of the 40 guys on the team.
Although he rowed in the 3V for much of the season and the varsity coxed four at the IRA, Jack knew that his future in rowing didn’t lie with trying to keep up with the much bigger guys at Wisco.
“I loved the experience of rowing at Wisconsin and going to the IRA,” said Jack. But he wanted to row lightweights,
so he decided to transfer, and was accepted by Georgetown.
I asked him why he’s gotten off to such a good start in rowing.
“It’s all those years of running—not just the physical exercise, but the mental side,” he said. “To learn to push hard trains the body and the mind.”
Jack is having a blast rowing this fall. His new team did a 6K test and now, having bulked up to 139, he rowed 20:14 (1:41.1 splits). He made the lightweight varsity eight for the Head of the Charles, where they finished sixth, and he was rowing in the engine room at four seat. He still has not done a second 2K.
When I saw him last summer at the Road Race, he ran a personal best and finished second overall.
“And you know what?“ he said, “I didn’t run a single time all summer, never even put on my running shoes. It was all erging for me; I wanted to do well at Georgetown.”
A runner switches to erg training but still has a personal best? There must be something to this erg stuff.
DOCTOR ROWING, a.k.a. Andy Anderson, has been coxing, coaching, and sculling for 55 years. When not writing, coaching, or thinking about rowing, he teaches at Groton School and considers the fact that all three of his children rowed and coxed—and none played lacrosse—his greatest success.
DOCTOR ROWING
ANDY ANDERSON
One Tough Kid
Whether running or erging, Jack Lionette has the heart and confidence of a champion
We often hear about the value of cross-training. “Don’t only erg; get out and do some running” is a common refrain in the boathouse. But what about telling a runner, “Don’t only run; get on an erg and crank away”? I’d hazard a guess that there are few, if any, running coaches who dispense this advice.
Jack Lionette was my advisee for four years at Groton, where I teach. I had met him before he came to boarding school. He was a small boy who ran like a gazelle. His motion was economical and smooth. When I watched him win his age group in our town’s 5K road race at age eight, I was impressed. It is a tough course with some big hills, but he flew up them.
As the years passed, he kept getting faster. By the time he entered Groton in ninth grade, he owned the 0 to 8, 8 to 11, and the 11 to 15 age-group course records, winning every year.
He began running with his mother and before long he was famous around town. You’d see him on the trails and on roads constantly. One year he ran so hard in the Chilmark Road Race that at the finish line he passed out and was taken to the hospital. This was one tough kid.
A runner switches to erg training but still has a personal best? There must be something to this erg stuff.
Jack Lionette
He found new challenges when he began to run for our varsity cross-country team. For four years, he was an all-New England runner, winning most of the races in which he competed. He went to the University of Wisconsin, where he hoped that he could walk on to the team. But Wisco is a national power in cross-country, with domestic and international recruits, and the coaches never replied to his queries about trying out. So he did what every frustrated aerobic athlete should do—he tried out for crew.
In his tenth-grade year, he had asked me, “Do you think I would make a good coxswain?” He had not hit his growth streak, and I’d guess he weighed about 100 pounds.
“Jack, you’d make a great coxswain because you are very competitive, light, and a leader. But aren’t you also a varsity tennis player? Do you want to give that up?”
No, he didn’t want to, so he played varsity tennis for three years and was part of a championship team and again an all-New England athlete.
“Whenever a match was on the line, I was hoping Jack was the last one playing,” his tennis coach told me. “One could see in Jack’s face his utter confidence. He knew he would win.”
At Wisconsin, Jack saw on Instagram that there was a meeting for lightweight rowing. He had always had friends who rowed at Groton and he was intrigued. He had shot up in height to 5-feet-10, but he weighed in the 130s. He went to the first meeting for freshmen only to discover that the Badgers did not have lightweight men’s rowing, only women’s. He was steered to the men’s meeting, where several people asked if he was there to cox.
“No, I want to row.”
“Two hundred and fifty guys showed up at the introductory meeting,“ Jack recalled, “and it is literally true that coaches were picking guys out of registration lines and asking them to try rowing. I also heard that they had sent a letter to everyone over six-three in the freshman database urging them to try out. Close to 300 guys ended up trying out.”
The six-week tryout was mostly erging. After three weeks, they had a four-mile run and three erg workouts: a 2,500-meter test, a
Washington, USA
Washington, USA
Washington, USA
Thursday, Feb. 6to Saturday, Feb 8, 2025
Thursday, Feb. 6 to Friday, Feb. 7, 2025
Thursday, Feb. 6to Saturday, Feb 8, 2025
The Women’s Coaching Conference serves all female rowing coaches, providing attendees with actionable education and community building to ma ximize their current positions and advance to the next step in their careers. The mission of the WCC is to educate, connect, and inspire emerging and established female coaches across the sport. The Winter ‘24-’25 conferences feature top-tier, professional presenters including leadership coaches, athletic directors, and leaders within the rowing community and beyond.
The Women’s Coaching Conference serves all female rowing coaches, providing attendees with actionable education and community building to ma ximize their current positions and advance to the next step in their careers. The mission of the WCC is to educate, connect, and inspire emerging and established female coaches across the sport. The Winter ‘24-’25 conferences feature top-tier, professional presenters including leadership coaches, athletic directors, and leaders within the rowing community and beyond.
For more information, and to register for the event, visit wccconference.com Space is limited.
For more information, and to register for the event, visit wccconference.com. Space is limited.
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