GW Invite, Windermere Crew Classic, Fosburgh Cup
April 10, 2005
Georgetown crews raced all across the country this weekend, with the Lightweight Women competing in the Windermere Crew Classic in San Francisco, CA, the Heavyweight Men and Openweight Women racing on the Potomac at the GW Invitational, and the Lightweight men facing a double-header weekend in Princeton, NJ.
This marked the second year of the Lightweight Women’s participation in the Windermere regatta, a highly competitive invitational that generally draws four or five of the top six lightweight women’s crews in the nation for an early-season match-up. The format of this regatta is similar to that of the Royal Henley Regatta in England in that crews race one on one for a series of three or four races. This way, crews race a broad range of crews in a dual meet setup. Georgetown faced hard opponents in defending nationals champions Wisconsin and host team Stanford, but came out on top in their final race of the weekend against the University of California by well over 20 seconds.
Back home in Washington, DC, the heavyweight men and women were fighting strong on the Potomac. Highlights included the women’s varsity crew finishing second, behind GW, and the men’s varsity crew, who finished third, behind #7 Navy and the University of Virginia. Additionally, the men’s freshman crew, after suffering a boat stopping crab in their heat, posted a time in the Petite Final that would have won the Grand Final. Certainly this crew will be out looking to display their speed as the season goes on.
Finally, the lightweight men took up residence in Princeton, NJ for the weekend, racing Princeton University in the inaugural Whit Fosburgh Cup on Saturday on Lake Carnegie and Harvard, Delaware, and Columbia on Sunday at Lake Mercer. The men dropped all their races on Saturday, even with an excellent sprint effort by the JV that left them barely a second and a half behind Princeton. The varsity cup race was marked by a slow starting Georgetown crew, who then languished bow-to-stern with Princeton for the remainder of the piece, finishing 3.1 seconds in arrears.
Sunday saw the lightweights in better form against the host of EARC crews that waited at Lake Mercer. The JV eight saw another strong performance against an excellent Harvard crew, finishing second, less than three seconds behind. The varsity rebounded well from the previous day’s loss with an excellent start that saw them lead the entire race, finishing 1.5 seconds up on Harvard.
