We have finally reached the jewel in the crown of men’s american collegiate rowing: the Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s national championships. The most important of all of the events offered is the heavyweight varsity eight as dozens of programs have fought all season in the blue-riband event and just twenty-four have qualified to race on Lake Mercer for this prestigious crown.
Washington
Entering the championships as the number one-ranked crew in the country, the Washington Huskies are the fourth program to hold that title so far this season. A narrow defeat at the IRA Sarasota Invitational in March to Harvard seems a lifetime ago as they have been untouchable ever since. Two wins over rivals California highlighted a west-coast centric remainder of their schedule as a course record in Redwood Shores before claiming the final Pac-12 Championships ensured their supremacy over the Golden Bears out west. Head Coach Michael Callahan has divided his time between this boat and the US men’s eight. The latter has now secured their qualification for the Paris Olympics so focus returns to domestic matters and he will be hoping to claim his first national title since the COVID-affected 2021 season.
California
The defending national champions opened the season at the top of the rankings but had been massively impacted by those stepping away from the team in search of Olympic selection in their home countries. California have recovered from a rockier start to the season to build their speed into the end of the year. The length they were down to Washington at the dual was cut to just over half of that at the conference Championship and Scott Frandsen’s men will be looking to make the most of the momentum they are carrying across the country. They are yet to face a major east-coast treat beyond Syracuse at the beginning of April, so they may be shocked by some of the Ivy crews they will meet this weekend.
Harvard
After the first few weeks of the season, it was beginning to look like Harvard Crimson were the team to beat as they sat at the top of some of the early coaches’ polls following their victory in Florida in the first week of racing. However, things came unstuck midway through the season after a home loss to Princeton was followed by nearly falling to Northeastern midweek and a tight win over Penn to wrap up a challenging seven-day period that concluded the regular season. By Eastern Sprints, the Head of the Charles champions had been overhauled by their fast-improving opposition as they missed the podium for the third year in a row. They will be hoping to bounce back at the IRAs before their historic dual against Yale in New London, Connecticut.
Princeton
The other team to lead the coaches’ poll are the Princeton tigers who just finished their first undefeated regular season since 2006 and only their fifth in the programme’s long history. This included an impressive run in which they defeated Harvard, Yale and Brown in succession, entering the Eastern Sprints as unquestionably the fastest team on the East Coast. Coming out of the conference title, that statement is not as sure. The crew could only manage silver as they fell behind an impressive sprint from the Brown Bears, leaving no undefeated crews in this category. All this shapes up for an impressive revenge tour as Greg Hughes will be sure to have his men ready to right the wrong on the largest stage of all.
Brown
For the last few years, Paul Cooke has gained a reputation for building speed within the Brown crews at just the right time, and at no point has this been clearer than this season. They were clear water behind Harvard in March’s race Sarasota, but they have continually gained speed throughout the year, highlighted again as they lost to Princeton in their final race of the regular season by 2.6 seconds but reversed that outcome at Eastern Sprints where their phenomenal sprint drew them past Princeton to take the crown by the narrowest of margins. This effort has been building over the last few years and they will be hoping it continues and they will join their first Eastern Sprints victory since 2012 with their first IRA Championship since 1995.
Yale
The final crew on the tightly-contested podium at the Eastern Sprints was Yale. Following the legendary Steve Gladstone, Mike Gennaro was always going to have a tough time in his opening season, so this bronze medal is a real positive note on what has not been a brilliant season. Narrow victories over Dartmouth and Penn plus a big loss to Princeton are now in the past and the Bulldogs will be giving their all to fight at the front of the pack on Sunday, regardless of previous outcomes.
Petite Final Crews
With such a tight field at Sprints, it may end up being an all-Eastern race in the second-level final. Penn and Dartmouth are both having historically strong seasons while Northeastern will be wanting to show they are better than their performance in the Grand Final after being controversially granted entry as a seventh crew at Eastern Sprints.
Syracuse seems unlikely to match their grand-final appearance last year and will likely have to settle for the Petite while the battles between Boston University and Navy plus Stanford and Cornell for a spot in the A/B Semis will be intense with no repechages in this year’s format.
Prediction
This is one of the toughest races to predict as any of the four programmes at the top of the page have a realistic chance of winning the event. I think Princeton will have enough to overturn Brown as the best team on the east-coast, but this will be a battle for bronze with Washington and California sweeping the east-coasters away to secure gold and silver respectively.
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