USRowing Summer championships

[Mandolorian]

rowing - I am not sure how U23s had an effect on this, I get the impression from your statement that you simply have a problem with the idea of selection camps and favor the idea of the club system and everything being trials. Which is a whole different discussion.

[Mango]

Mango - To be clear, I am not saying that racing experience alone will make up for someone who is 20 or more seconds off of the pace. I am talking about the top 8-10 athletes who need to get more experience racing. More experience with someone telling them, this is when you have to be on the starting line, someone different than their coach calling the start, racing on a different course, sleeping in a hotel room, the butterflies that come with racing for a medal, getting used to all of the small details that make you a little less "comfortable' on race day that you don't deal with lining up in practice on a Wednesday morning against the people you practice with every day.

And to answer full metal - again - this was the way it was back in the 80's and 90's - when there were separate elite and club nationals. The top Canadians came to elite nationals, we even had crews from Mexico coming, as well as all of the top athletes from the US camps and clubs. It was legitimate racing experience in North America for the top athletes. It was as close to WCup racing experience here on our continent as you could get. As soon as the elite and club nationals were brought together, it really watered down the field and elite athletes didn't want to have to show up on Tuesday (when finals were on Sunday), to start racing in heats in events where there were people 30+ seconds behind them.

The timing of elite nationals is also important. It needs to be driven to some degree by when trials are. Again, the top athletes are training to be ready for trials. Having a regatta a week or two before trials is not going to be anything those athletes will do. It has to be at least a month or so prior to trials so it doesn't disrupt the training for trials.

Right, I agree with you regarding experience. I was more speaking to the people who might look at say, the BM2- at this regatta and go "well they don't have any experience" not necessarily speaking to you directly.

What watered things down for USA summer racing was the evolution of Nations Cup into a formal U23 World Championship.....with a whole new set of disembodied selection camps in the USA that siphoned athletes away from the clubs that had once been the core summer development opportunity for rowers during and after college.

Change my mind.

I think the summer racing issue has a lot of factors. I would argue that the biggest factor is sort of "super clubs" or "training center-lite" and also the speed of youths. USRowing sends a millions dev camp entries. Plus Penn AC brings in 1000 kids, plus all the other junior programs that do the same thing and charge a million bucks. If you are just a local club, why bother spending that money to go race at clubs. The competitive clubs at youths are a lot of work and stress for a teenager during the school year. A lot take the summer to be kids, go run, mess around in small boats, etc. Why spend all the money and stress for an experience that is probably not all that beneficial. We hardly ever see Saugatuck, Marin, Maritme, etc. racing in the summer and it is of no detriment to their team or club results. I don't think juniors need two national championships held 6 weeks apart.

College is similar I think. You go through a tough collegiate year then go row at Penn AC, Vesper, Craftsbury, running official two-adays and a mini training camp. Remember when Sopko and Muff went back to Mobjak and cleaned up. West Side had a good thing for a while with their athletes coming back for the summers. You would come home, maybe bring a friend with you. Learn to row the 2- or scull. Drink some beer, if you are in Wisconsin throw in some cheese curds and sausage, and get some racing starts. But everything is an expensive camp. Summer club rowing isn't about the Philly kids/young adults, racing DC, and Boston. It is a conglomeration of expensive training camps after an already grueling season for everybody.

USRowing is just trying to do too much for everybody while also collecting entry fees to keep the lights on. I don't envy having to make those decisions. But having a single club national championship would be a good start I think. They should be able to make up the revenue from Club Nats by getting creative with other events across the country during the year. Or hold a Youth Championship, but drop the u17/19 events at Clubs 6 weeks later. Let the "super clubs" and Dev Camps with juniors race u23. (I think the Dev camps should have to race up a division anyways and not race their age bracket)

[lt.wolf]

I hope Nationals is accepting late entries

[lt.wolf]

US Rowing has been turning toward the more profitable groups for years now. Juniors and Masters they can run up the cash register on as there is no money in “Elite “ or “Club “ rowing. I feel for those athletes as they work hard and want to get better but the opportunities are fading.

Changing to a age bracket field was overdue and it won’t be long before more regattas follow suit.

[fullmetal]

Age bracket field is a great way for USRowing to mask the disappearance of the youth lightweight categories

[oldman]

Trials? I have been away .. for what future event are there trials this weekend?

[lt.wolf]

They were to be trials for this years World Championships in China which has now been cancelled.

Hopefully US Rowing is accepting late entries so people can now enter into multiple events

[fullmetal]

They've historically taken late entries pretty far along iirc...the late registration fees might still be in effect. But yes, with the cancellation of WRCH, it'd be nice for USRowing to provide a silver lining.

[lt.wolf]

Hearing / Seeing reports of US Rowing changing the weigh in rules literally in the middle of the night before weigh ins

The removal of averaging since no longer a trials event.

[rowSU]

Hearing / Seeing reports of US Rowing changing the weigh in rules literally in the middle of the night before weigh ins

The removal of averaging since no longer a trials event.

This was after athletes were told by USRowing repeatedly that the rules would NOT be changing, then the email dropped after 10pm last night, pretty ridiculous

[lt.wolf]

Was this a referee decision?

[rowSU]

Was this a referee decision?

Email was sent from the USRowing regatta committee as part of 'Event Updates', so somebody within USRowing decided to make the change

[Withoutmercy]

And... US rowing wonders why members have a low opinion about the governess of the association. The announcement and decision should have been decided and disseminated to the lightweight athletes earlier this week.

[fullmetal]

The LOC makes the rules, the referees enforce them.

[lt.wolf]

Seeing that US Rowing may have cancelled racing possibly a bit too early today. What’s the deal ?

Regatta might be too overloaded with events that the schedule can’t shift a bit