Champ Eights

USRowing Men and Women Both Go 1-2

By Ben Farber – Posted on October 20, 2019

USRowing coaches Mike Teti and Tom Terhaar each sought to balance the two boats they were bringing to the men’s and women’s Championship Eights at this year’s Head of the Charles. They would seem to have done their job very well.

USRowing went one-two in both the men’s and women’s race today, and the margins could not have been closer.

A barely measurable 0.067 seconds—that’s 67 one-thousandths of a second—separated the two men’s boats.  Boat B, coxed by Colette Lucas-Conwell and stroked by Clark Dean, just barely outpaced Boat A, helmed by coxswain Julian Venonsky and stroke Patrick Eble. The numbers were 13:32:283 to 13:32:350.

The intrasquad rivals jostled for position throughout the race. Halfway through, Boat A led by one second. But by the time the men made the wide left turn around past the Cambridge Boat Club, Boat B pulled ahead for good, if just barely so.

The two USRowing boats had to be as fast as they were. Yale finished third, just four seconds the U.S. boats with a time of 13:36.

In contrast to the men’s race, the women’s race was a virtually runaway, nearly a full second separating USRowing boats A and B. Boat A, featuring coxswain Leigh Warner and stroke Molly Bruggeman, outpaced Boat B, led by coxswain Katelin Guregian and stroke Olivia Coffey, 15:05.842 to 15:06.833. Boat A held that slender lead from start to finish. Not only were the two boats separated by less than a second at the finish, they were never more than a second apart at the Riverside, Weld and Cambridge Boat Club check points.

The two U.S. women’s boats finished comfortably ahead of third-place Stanford, besting the Cardinal by almost 18 seconds. Stanford finished the course in 15:24:784.

And for the first time since 2006-07, both the U.S. men and women will leave Boston as back-to-back winners.